Edinburgh Napier University

  Purpose - New business models emerged within the creative industries when advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs) altered the patterns of cultural consumption worldwide. Digital technologies altered the way creative products were created, produced, reproduced, distributed, and commercialised at national and international levels. In the face of the continual emergence of digital disruptions, the traditional, existing sector is failing to rapidly enough adapt. The purpose of the paper is to provide a better understanding of an emerging framework for the transformation of incumbent cultural and creative enterprises in a digital age, called The AmbITion Approach.
Design/methodology/approach – Empirical work developed The AmbITion Approach into a framework for business transformation in a digital age: blending participatory action research methods with modern management consultancy tools and design and creative practices. Digital research tools for inquiry were designed and prototyped, tested by a pilot study, and then embedded in a longitudinal study over two years of twenty-one participant organisations from Scotland’s creative sector. Detailed grounded thematic analysis of the data corpus was undertaken, along with analysis of rich media case studies produced by enterprises about their change journeys. Empirical work also introduced to the framework Coghlan and Rashford’s change categories.
Originality/value – These enabled the description of the extent to which organisations developed: whether they experienced first order (change), second order (adaptation) or third order (transformation) change. The results of studies on participants, and validation criteria applied to the results, have demonstrated the approach triggers second and third order change. It is suitable for incumbent creative businesses to apply within the continuing landscape of digital disruption. However, all sectors face ongoing digital disruption.
Practical implications – Management consultancy practices, and business strategy academics have called for new, empirically tried and tested, strategy development frameworks and toolkits, fit for a digital age. The concepts, methods, toolkits, and processes of The AmbITion Approach have been validated in the field as a new framework for business transformation for creative industries in a digital age. The findings justify provocations on current UK government creative economy policies. Governments must improve digital/economic development policy to better support incumbent, traditional creative enterprises providing cultural value, if they are to survive.