ePrints

Being self employed or being enterprising? The case of creative work for the media industries

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Susan Baines

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.

Abstract

The government wants more people to start up new small enterprises. In practice, this is likely to mean more sole traders without employees, a heterogeneous group sometimes identified with, and sometimes distinguished from, small enterprises. In this paper, we confront that contradiction, drawing upon academic and policy-oriented writing on small firms and upon a wider literature on labour markets and employment trends. Being self-employed is not synonymous with being enterprising, but most self-employed people will need skills associated with enterprise to survive. We overview the cultural sector, which has been identified as a key growth sector for jobs and one in which very small businesses and self-employed individuals predominate. We explore in depth the “enterprising” behaviour of a subgroup of the cultural sector, people offering creative services to the print and broadcast media on a self-employed basis. Our particular focus is upon how they form and manage working relationships. The expectation was that, while few would formally become employers, collaborative, colleague-like working patterns would be adopted to avoid isolation and overcome the vulnerability of small size. This was true, but only for a very small group. For the most part, links with other self-employed people were tentative and fraught with suspicion. Distrust was pervasive and often coexisted painfully with a desire to form new links for information seeking, sociability and to combat the commercial disadvantages of working alone. Typically, the most important working relationships were with employees of client companies, and many were determined to see these links as longterm, personal and not purely commercial. There was a marked lack of skills in negotiating and marketing.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Baines S, Robson L

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development

Year: 2001

Volume: 8

Issue: 4

Pages: 349-362

Print publication date: 01/10/2001

ISSN (print): 1462-6004

ISSN (electronic): 1758-7840

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000006830

DOI: 10.1108/EUM0000000006830

Altmetrics

Share