UNCTAD | Creative Industry 4.0: Towards a new globalized Creative Economy
The Creative Economy is an analytical category that encompasses a very diverse array of sectors. It includes heritage and cultural products, such as handicrafts, and it incorporates the software designers that fashion the digital economy and influence the future of the whole of society (Dubina and Campbell, 2019). In a world of global networking, via the evolution of digitalization and the changing behaviour of people, both as producers and as consumers, analysis needs to look beyond individual creativity. Today, business innovation is the process of both generating and applying creative ideas in a commercial context (Bakhshi and Mc Vitte 2009). At the same time, even the most traditional, cultural or heritage-dependent creative activities are being transformed by the evolution of technologies.
This study examines the economic aspects of the interaction between creativity and technologicalbusiness innovations. The objective of the study is to better understand how the 4th industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, has changed the way creative actors are performing their activity. In this study, creativity is regarded as the fuel and the engine of the Creative Economy and refers to the act of generating new ideas and approaches to technological applications.
The study is organised in two parts. The first part looks at the definitional issues based on a review of the literature, followed by an assessment of the economic weight of the Creative Economy in terms of production, employment, and trade. The second part invites the reader to examine possible implications of Industry 4.0 on various branches of the creative industries. Particular attention is paid to the new trading opportunities that “Creative Industry 4.0” may provide to developing countries through redefining these countries’ comparative advantages. The study concludes with policy options for developing countries to nurture the competitiveness of their creative industries in the new digital economy.
21 April 2022
Creative Industry 4.0: Towards a new globalized Creative Economy
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