The 16th Annual McGill International Entrepreneurship Conference: Researching New Frontiers

Motaghi, Etemad - The Internationalization of Creative Industries: The Experience of Cultural Festivals

Hamed Motaghi

University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM)

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Hamid Etemad

McGill University

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Cultural industries have a large socio-economic impact largely due to their international activities; but the nature, the extent and the impact of their internationalization neither is well-understood nor deeply explored. This paper aims to elucidate different facets of cultural industries’ internationalization and explore influential factors impacting their successful growth and internationalization.
Although the cultural impact of the creative industries, at times also called the artistic or cultural industries, is rather clear, their economic impact and the source of such impacts are not obvious or properly highlighted. According to Statistic Canada (different reports), their direct economic impact in 2001 amounted to more than $38 billion or approximately 3.8% of the Canadian GDP in that year. Except for recessionary periods, this impact has been growing steadily. However, these contributions are not the same in various cities and provinces. In Montreal Metropolitan Area, the cultural sector holds a prominent position. In 2008, it created 96,910 direct jobs, which represented 5.1% of overall employment in the Montreal Metropolis (the second largest in Canada after Toronto’s). The direct incremental impact of the creative and cultural industries has added value of about $12 billion per year, which is approximately 6% of GDP of the Montreal Metropolis.
In Quebec City, the Winter Carnival, another example of creative and cultural industries discussed in the paper in length, plays an important role in the city’s GDP growth. In 2011 alone, the Quebec Winter Carnival generated $31 million incremental GDP for the city and created more than 630 additional direct jobs. The number of visitors to this event was approximated at more than 75,000 tourists, coming from various locations within and outside of Canada. Although very significant, touristic visits and their expenditures are only one component of the industry’s internationalization as many components of the up-stream supply chain are also coming from international locations.
As another popular example of the cultural industry, is the Montreal’s International Jazz Festival, celebrating its 34^th edition in June 2013 (http://www.montrealjazzfest.com/default-en.aspx), has become the mecca of international Jazz musicians. They come to the Festival from the far corners of the world to play and to entertain diverse audiences, which can be viewed as internationalization of production and supply chain. These international artists also increase their recognition and international brand value at the same time. This “inward” movement of international artists producing creative services points to radically different pattern of internationalization with a higher complexity of production processes in such industries. More importantly, the Montreal International Jazz Festival, similar to other such local festivals, attracts many national and mainly international tourists to its shows in the location, built specifically for such events, that generate much direct and indirect benefits for Montreal in this case. One can, therefore, suggest that the Montreal International Jazz Festival’s supply and value chains are internationalized at the both ends, which is similar to internationalization pattern of the industry elsewhere, regardless of the location. This pattern of internationalization in this industry is very different from others, even from those in other services outside of the creative and cultural industries, and radically different from internationalization firms with goods as their primary vehicle of value creation.
The paper goes on to introduce a brief discussion of cultural industries in terms of their particular characteristics that impact the pattern of its internationalization. The extent and the impact of creativity, knowledge and technological intensities of the creative and cultural industries are also discussed. A review of the literature pertinent to creative industry’s growth and internationalization processes is presented. A brief review of a few festivals and carnivals, as examples of cultural industries, are presented and analyzed to serve as the basis for the articulation the general pattern of Cultural Industry’s internationalization as well as proposing an early theory of internationalization in such industries. The conclusion and implications appear are also discussed.

Naguib - Women Entrepreneurs in the Middle East: A Multi-Level Institutional Lens

Rabia Naguib (BSc. MSc, PhD)

Executive MBA Director

College of Business Administration

University of Sharjah, UAE


Abstract

This paper’s major contribution lies in articulating a theoretical framework combining a multi-level research design with an institutional lens, to enhance our understanding of the impact of multiple factors and alternative institutional and cultural contexts on female entrepreneurship. We use this framework to provide insights into multi-level factors enabling and constraining the experience of female entrepreneurship in the UAE and in the Middle East more broadly. Drawing on both semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with female entrepreneurs in the UAE, our findings aptly highlight the salience of a complex set of entangled factors lying at multiple levels of analysis in shaping female entrepreneurship in the UAE. Our findings also accentuate the importance of the spatial, institutional and social contexts in scoping the situational opportunities and constraints that affect female entrepreneurship and its complex expressions in a particular society. We draw implications from our research pertaining to multi-level research design and cross-national patterns of female entrepreneurship.

Keywords: Female Entrepreneurship, Institutional Theory, Multi-Level Analysis; UAE; Middle East; Development; Cross-Cultural Entrepreneurship Research