MA Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship: Leadership Pathway

The dissertations are intended to assess the full range of students abilities and to apply a range of learning outcomes which the programme enables students to develop. In particular it enables assessment of the ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables students to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument. You will also complete either a Dissertation or a Project.

The discourses of contemporary 'Leadership' and 'Enterprise Theory' are, much like the wider discourse of Management Theory itself, in a state of critical transformation. The authority, validity, and appropriateness of that type of scientifically influenced or 'positivist' thinking that informed so much of the early 'Taylorist' and 'Fordist' influenced work of the so-called 'first age' (Snowden, 2005) of Management Theory has been thrown into disrepute, as have many of the premises of that more contextually aware and 'constructively' influenced work that informed the so-called 'second age'. Undermined by both the universalising and de-contextualising tendencies of that type of thinking that defined the 'first age', and the still latent problems of the 'implementation' or 'internalisation' (Nonaka, 1995) of the insights of that thinking that defined the 'second age,' we are now in a position in which ? in what is increasing being recognised as the 'third age' of Management Theory ? all of the principal discourses of Management Theory from Knowledge Management, to Organisational Theory, Enterprise Theory, Innovation, and Leadership, are having to come to terms with the difficult question of how they can still deal with their various objects of analysis, whether that be the essential nature, qualities, or conditions of successful Leadership, Enterprise, or Innovation, in a relatively organized, structured, and predictable way, and yet a way that does not undermine, foreclose, or delimit the essential 'complexity', unpredictability, and 'emergent' qualities of these phenomena and the contexts in which they arise. This is a problem that has seen a pronounced emphasis in recent years on the analysis of the role that the individual 'creative', 'entrepreneurial', or 'self-actualising' subject plays in the 'narrative' construction of their own relationships to those contexts in which they exist, innovate, lead, or learn (Tsoukas, 2005).

This module will introduce students to a range of business modelling tools, and provide insight in to the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and enterprises. The module has evolved from NESTA?s Creative Pioneer Programme and will use the Modelling Techniques that were designed and have evolved from The Academy and Insight Out which provide approaches to commercialising creativity. It will critically review the key characteristics of successful enterprises, entrepreneurs and leaders, within the cultural and more commercially focused creative industries. It will look at the range of business models that exist and review how best to build a financially sustainable organisation.

The projects are intended to assess the full range of students abilities and to apply a range of learning outcomes which the programme enables students to develop. In particular, it enables assessment of the ability to design, develop and write an advanced practice-based research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables students to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument. You will also complete either a Dissertation or a Project.

Theories of Capital critically examines key theories of social, economic, cultural and symbolic capital. The module details these conceptual capital frameworks and compliments this theoretical foundation with application in the creative and cultural industries with a focus on government policy and the unique economic characteristics of the creative industries. For example consumer consumption of status goods will be assessed using theories of symbolic and social capital. Emphasis will be given on the role of intellectual capital in policy. Students will learn the analytical rigour to critically assess creative and cultural industry policy and market structures. Students will be able to translate theory into practice, and practice into theory.