Strategy as practice in creative industries: The past and future of academic production

Abstract

Strategy as practice is increasingly expanding and consolidating in management research. Although there are still few studies on the creative industries, strategy as practice has significant potential for growth and contribution in this field. This article systematically reviews academic production on strategy as practice in the creative industries. The review identified, selected, and analyzed academic publications, supporting the classification of the main methodological approaches used and the theoretical categorization of relevance, conceptions, absences, and challenges in research on strategy as practice in the creative industries. Other research results involve the discussion of cross-contributions between these fields of knowledge and perspectives for renewing the future of their academic production.

Keywords:
Strategy as practice; Creative industries; Strategizing; Organizing

Resumo

A estratégia como prática se expande e consolida, cada vez mais, nas pesquisas em administração. Embora ainda dispomos de raros estudos desenvolvidos nas indústrias criativas, a estratégia como prática apresenta um significativo potencial de crescimento e contribuição nesse campo. Este artigo consiste em uma revisão sistemática da produção acadêmica sobre estratégia como prática no campo das indústrias criativas. A revisão identificou, selecionou e analisou publicações acadêmicas, sustentando a classificação das principais abordagens metodológicas utilizadas, bem como a categorização teórica sobre relevâncias, concepções, ausências e desafios na pesquisa sobre estratégia como prática nas indústrias criativas. Outros resultados da pesquisa envolvem a discussão de contribuições cruzadas entre esses campos do conhecimento e de perspectivas para renovar o futuro de sua produção acadêmica.

Palavras-chave:
Estratégia como prática; Indústrias criativas; Strategizing; Organizing

Resumen

La estrategia como práctica se expande y consolida cada vez más en la investigación sobre administración. Aunque todavía hay pocos estudios sobre las industrias creativas, la estrategia como práctica tiene un importante potencial de crecimiento y contribución en este campo. Este artículo consiste en una revisión sistemática de la producción académica sobre la estrategia como práctica en las industrias creativas. La revisión identificó, seleccionó y analizó publicaciones académicas que apoyan la clasificación de los principales abordajes metodológicos utilizados, así como la categorización teórica de relevancia, concepciones, ausencias y desafíos en la investigación sobre estrategia como práctica en las industrias creativas. Otros resultados de la investigación implican la discusión de contribuciones cruzadas entre estos campos de conocimiento y perspectivas para renovar el futuro de su producción académica.

Palabras clave:
Estrategia como práctica; Industrias creativas; Strategizing; Organizing

INTRODUCTION

Creative industries are characterized by the convergence of the arts, business, and technology, which results in the production and circulation of cultural objects in the form of intellectual property (Jeffcutt, 2000; Cornford & Charles, 2001; Hartley, 2005; Howkins, 2005; Bendassolli, Wood Jr., Kirschbaum & Cunha, 2009). They include several creative sectors, such as music, performing arts, film, TV, architecture, advertising, interactive software, and publishing. Economically relevant, creative industries are associated with a perspective where capital has an intellectual basis for forming social networks and exchanging knowledge (Bendassolli et al., 2009). Therefore, they meet individual aesthetic, intellectual, and quality of life needs.

Emerging in 1996 (Whittington, 1996) and effectively developed from the early 2000s, the strategy-as-practice approach emerges with a focus on micro-level strategies, examining the processes of organizing, decision-making, and studies of organizational practice (Whittington, 1996; Jarzabkowski, 2005; Vaara & Whittington, 2012; Golsorkhi et al., 2015; Kohtamäki et al., 2022). In the study of practice, work is analyzed within the social context to which it belongs (Whittington, 2006). The field has become relevant in management research, making it possible to break away from the traditional boundaries of strategy studies and getting closer to practitioners (Jarzabkowski, 2005). This allows for performing work that relates the perspectives of strategy-as-practice to several other research areas.

Strategy-as-practice is conceived as a socially situated and contextualized activity in the actions and interactions of multiple actors. Three focal points help in this conception (Jarzabkowski, 2005): Practitioners, the people who make strategy from their actions and interactions, knowing the different aspects of strategic work; praxis, the concrete making of strategy, the formal and informal actions and interactions of individuals, represented in the execution of processes by people; and practices, characterized by the institutionalized activities used by people in strategy work, mediating the actions and interactions between professionals. With a plural research agenda, the field of strategy-as-practice, in addition to these focal points, is very diverse regarding empirical, theoretical, and methodological approaches, which include the social theory by Giddens, Bourdieu, and Foucault, for example, besides methodological research approaches such as ethnography (Cunliffe, 2015) and biographical methods (Rouleau, 2015; Golsorkhi et al., 2015).

Studies using the strategy-as-practice approach in creative industries can be traced back to the early 2000s (Maitlis & Lawrence, 2003). Maitlis and Lawrence (2003) examined attempts to build the artistic strategy of a British symphony orchestra. Over the last twenty years, studies have continued to examine the perspective of strategy-as-practice in this context, checking how strategies are planned and implemented (Daigle & Rouleau, 2010; Ramos & Borges, 2020). Strategy-as-practice enables professionals and organizations in creative industries to understand how their activities are thought out and implemented toward their development.

Understanding how research approaches strategy-as-practice in creative industries is relevant for identifying how strategists in this field think about organizational direction. More broadly, however, we can seek an understanding of how these professionals act and interact throughout strategic development and implementation. Perceiving the dynamics between the two fields allows us to see how ideas are developed and how opportunities are identified and understand the daily working routines in a context economically relevant to society, which can still contribute significantly to studies on organizations and management.

This article aims to systematically review the academic production on strategy-as-practice in creative industries. Although we found important reviews on strategy-as-practice (Johnson et al., 2007; Vaara & Whittington, 2012; Kohtamäki et al., 2022), there has not yet been any work that verifies how it is expressed in the field of creative industries. While analyzing the academic output identified and selected, it was possible to develop a conceptual categorization to better explain and understand the central relevance, approaches, singularities, and challenges in research on strategy-as-practice in creative industries. The research results led to a discussion of cross-contributions between these fields of knowledge and perspectives for renewing the future of their academic production.

The article is divided into five sections besides this introduction. The first section describes the process from a methodological viewpoint. The following section presents the state-of-the-art studies on strategy-as-practice in the context of creative industries grounded on the conceptual categories developed: relevance, approaches, singularities, and challenges. The following sessions elaborate, respectively, the main contributions of the field of strategy-as-practice to research the creative industries and vice versa. Finally, the last section discusses the research results, pointing to possible directions for future research.

RESEARCH METHOD

This work was carried out through a systematic review of academic production in the field (Elsbach & Knippenberg, 2020; Gough et al., 2012; Hodgkinson & Ford, 2014; Patriotta, 2020; Aguinis, Ramani & Cascio, 2020; Breslin & Gatrell, 2020), seeking to select transparently, interpretively, and reflectively studies that involved the theme of strategy-as-practice in creative industries. From this selection, we focused on developing categories that integrate and propose perspectives that debate the subject and guide future research, which aims to interpret and categorize rather than conduct a statistical analysis (Breslin & Gatrell, 2020).

The review occurred in three phases. In the first phase of mapping, the terms “strategy as practice”, “creative industries”, “strategizing” were cross-referenced in several national and international publication databases, such as Academy of Management, Emerald, JSTOR, Periódicos CAPES, Routledge, Sage Publication Journals, Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO), Spell and Web of Science. This cross-referencing used the logical operators “and” and “or” when searching the papers’ titles, abstracts, and texts. Although studies on strategy-as-practice could be found in sub-areas of creative industries without mentioning this term, the choice was made for the studies to nominally mention the general nomenclature of the field, effectively assuming that they were part of it. Considering the criteria initially established, this stage of the research, which did not establish any restrictions on the time frame or field of study, resulted in 37 relevant papers.

In the second phase of refinement and expansion, duplicates were excluded, and only those studies related to the creative industries and strategy-as-practice were selected. They were then classified, relating their relevance to what the research set out to do. Their references were analyzed to include new studies in articles, books, chapters, dissertations, or theses to expand the selected academic output. When no new relevant references were found, the review was considered exhausted with 20 papers.

We conducted a thematic analysis of the selected publications in the third and final phase, which identified the central themes that helped the research, generating explanations, integrating, and problematizing the content. As a result, the following were identified: (a) The state-of-the-art of strategy-as-practice in creative industries, developing conceptual categories to structure this state (relevance, approaches, singularities, and challenges); (b) Strategy-as-practice’s contributions to research on creative industries; and (c) Creative industries’ contributions to future research on strategy-as-practice. These categories are presented in the following sections, along with reflections and shortcomings that have been identified and elaborated to guide future research in the field.

STRATEGY-AS-PRACTICE IN THE CONTEXT OF CREATIVE INDUSTRIES: CURRENT KNOWLEDGE

The review of academic production produced 20 papers, including 3 dissertations, 3 theses, and 14 articles, including national and international publications. The time frame of these studies revealed that most (13) were published in the last 10 years. The oldest article was published in 2003 (Maitlis & Lawrence, 2003), and the most recent in 2022 (Bertolini et al., 2022). Six articles have been published since 2020, which shows an, albeit small, increase in the volume of publications.

Analyzing the methodological aspect, we observed the predominance of qualitative research, with only one quantitative study (Daigle & Rouleau, 2010). Within the qualitative approaches, we note a clear emphasis on single and multiple case studies (Albino, 2007; Júlio, 2015; Quinn et al., 2021; Ramos & Borges, 2020; Bertolini et al., 2022; Sandbach, 2022), followed by ethnography (Duarte, 2015; Saraiva, 2009; Saraiva et al., 2011, Cunliffe, 2015), longitudinal research (Maitlis & Lawrence, 2003; Amaral Filho, 2006; Gandia & Tourancheau, 2015) and grounded theory (D’Amore, 2015).

Regarding the studies on the main sectors of the creative industries covered, we can see, albeit in small numbers, a wide variety of sectors researched. Although there is a greater tendency to address performing arts sectors, such as music, theater, and dance, we also identified research that analyzed museums (Abfalter & Piber, 2016), the fashion market (Albino, 2007), publishing (Amaral Filho, 2006), and video games (Gandia & Tourancheau, 2015). Eight articles addressed performing arts, particularly music, represented in half of the publications.

Relevance of strategy-as-practice in existing research

Most selected studies apply concepts from the field of strategy-as-practice within organizations in the creative industries. This information becomes clear when analyzing the number of single and multiple case studies with a comparative approach to the practices (Albino, 2007; Quinn et al., 2021; Ramos & Borges, 2020).

The data in the publications leads to the conclusion that most of the studies already conducted present observations of the daily practice of the organizations studied. In addition, and to a lesser extent, some studies deal with public policies defined by city managers to help develop some branches of the creative industries. Identifying this information led to the definition of two groups of relevance of strategy-as-practice in existing research: the first group, which includes almost all the studies, is that of everyday practices; the second, which is considerably smaller, is that of public policies for the creative industries.

Day-to-day practices represent all the activities performed in the daily running of organizations by people responsible for executing their strategies. They analyze who performs each activity, how they do it, and the tools they use. In the selected publications, we saw works that observe such practices in dance groups (Saraiva, 2009; Saraiva et al., 2011; Palhares et al., 2019), musical bands (Ramos & Borges, 2020), in the organization of a samba school parade (Júlio, 2015), and in the preparation of a play (Duarte, 2015). This relevance is also explained by the fact that the practices of each of these organizations may differ, but they can also contribute to each other.

The relevance of studying everyday practices lies in the possibility of understanding the particularities of each organization in the creative industries regarding defining and carrying out their strategic activities. Although these organizations operate in similar fields, they are managed by different people. This naturally results in behaviors, actions and decisions that tend to differ for similar situations. The same can be said when these direction choices occur in different fields of the creative industries. However, despite these conditions, the results can be positive, as can the possibility of replicating these behaviors in different sectors.

Public Policies for Creative Industries: The second relevance identified concerns how public policy practices are defined for developing a sector of the creative industries in one or more cities. Bendassolli et al. (2009) describe how “creative industries” consolidated in academic research, using the example of the United Kingdom, which had a Ministry for Creative Industries at the time. In the cases found, the studies identified address strategies for developing the film market in a city (Bertolini et al., 2022), using public spaces to hold festivals to include the public in cultural policies (Quinn et al., 2021) and developing museums in a city toward historical preservation and dissemination for tourists and the local public (Abfalter & Piber, 2016).

Establishing public policies for the creative industries is crucial to help develop their underlying fields (Hanson, 2012). Although it is of great economic importance to society, many organizations and professionals in this field have difficulty establishing, maintaining, and developing in their respective areas. This is where government initiatives are relevant, as they help the dynamic and make it possible to return from an economic and artistic-cultural viewpoint. Understanding these initiatives from the perspective of strategy-as-practice is relevant, as different cities, regions, and countries have different strategic choices and actions.

Absences and challenges in academic production on strategy-as-practice in creative industries

The small amount of research on strategy-as-practice in creative industries has a limitation regarding the approaches used. Although most use different sectors, they tend to look at the practices of the organizations selected. What can differentiate the works is the type of analysis from the viewpoint of the theoretical reference within the field. From a methodological angle, although more than one qualitative research approach was identified, in general, the objectives seek the same thing: to verify strategic practices.

Although they are in the minority, some point to a different path of analyzing public policies. However, the aspects related to the analysis of practices are similar. Thus, there is a lack of and a need for greater diversification in theoretical and practical research approaches that use strategy-as-practice in creative industries. The challenge for researchers is to conduct studies that use both fields, seeking a more significant and more innovative contribution from one to the other.

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE FIELD OF STRATEGY-AS-PRACTICE TO RESEARCH ON CREATIVE INDUSTRIES

Strategy-as-practice has developed from a sociological perspective of practice to the detriment of more economic thinking (Golsorkhi et al., 2015), which leads to the understanding that the importance in this field lies in social interactions, how they occur, through which tools and their effect on organizational outcomes. This study focus has broadened the range of strategic outcomes for the organizations studied. There have also been two other significant changes (Jarzabkowski, 2005) for the field of traditional strategy: one is prioritizing the understanding non-profit organizations to the detriment of private companies; the other is the methodological change, from an orientation towards quantitative studies to qualitative methods.

The focus of studies on strategy-as-practice initially resided on three independent and complementary dimensions (Jarzabkowski, 2005): practices, characterized by the tools, norms, and procedures of strategic work, described as what is used to do strategy; praxis, activities involved in the daily doing of strategy, such as strategic planning processes and meetings, or what is done in practice; and practitioners, who are the people involved in or who influence strategic doing, those who do the strategy. These three dimensions form the basis of the development of studies in the field, representing a guideline for how studies have been directed.

New concepts, dimensions and approaches have been developed with the passage of time and the consolidation of strategy-as-practice as an important field of strategy studies. Kohtamäki et al. (2022) mapped the primary studies in the area and identified five main groupings of studies:

Praxis refers to the “doing” of strategy, the activity that people perform daily. It focuses on specific moments of strategy creation, such as meeting interactions. This group is mainly anchored in the work of Whittington and Jarzabkowski.

Creating Meaning: This group emphasizes cognition and emotion in strategic work. From this perspective, the relevance of the subjectivity of the actors’ interpretation in developing the activity can be seen. There is an significant focus on social construction, where strategies are made and remade through episodes of interaction between thought and feeling. In this group, the studies of Balogun and Langley stand out.

Discursive: This group highlights the importance of language for strategy work. Discourse is recognized as “performative” and brings about the reality intended to describe. Important themes are power and legitimacy, which lend themselves to a critical approach, where discourse is seen as an instrument for controlling managers and employees. Important authors in this group are Vaara and Mantere.

Sociomaterial: It recognizes the role of materiality in strategic work, with the interaction between the material world - which includes tools, technologies, spaces - and social activity. Three relationship forms are observed: the impact of physical materials on behavior, the interaction between material objects and social activity, and the inseparable relationship between the material and the social. Prominent works in the group are those by Seidl and Orlikowski.

Institutional: This field addresses how social practices drawn from broader organizational fields influence the activities of actors. It presents a more general concern with the historical and regional social context, extended beyond specific organizations. It points to the influence of socially constructed and historically incorporated material patterns and practices, such as values, beliefs, and rules. Giddens and Suddaby are often cited.

Three possible contributions of this field to the creative industries were identified considering these groupings found in studies of strategy-as-practice: an understanding of the daily praxis of professionals and organizations, the creation of meaning beyond creative work, and the creative sociomateriality of the field in a context wholly entangled with the technological environment of the internet. Although specifically focused on three clusters identified by Kohtamäki et al. (2022), the contributions presented below do not rule out the possibility of others being identified later within the institutional and discursive clusters. These are just contributions identified in this study based on the works found in this review of academic production.

Understanding daily praxis

Although the study of praxis is the main path of research into strategy-as-practice, with the small volume of studies found involving this field and the creative industries, this path can present many possibilities for development. In the different areas of the creative industries, it is possible to find various practices that differ from each other but can, at the same time, contribute to the development of the field (Saraiva, 2009; Saraiva et al., 2011; Duarte 2015; Ramos & Borges, 2020). Thus, understanding how professionals act in their daily lives remains a possible way for strategy-as-practice to contribute to the creative industries.

In their review of the literature on strategy-as-practice, Kohtamäki et al. (2022) report that most studies in the field are performed from the perspective of praxis, i.e., on strategic “doing” and its daily practices. This is similarly true of research involving this field and the creative industries, although, in general, there is very little of it.

Understanding how professionals working in creative industries think about, elaborate, and execute strategy in their daily work can contribute to the management field by identifying the main activities and organizational path choices in this area. To this end, studies on strategy-as-practice emerge as possible contributors since this is one of their main focuses, even in traditional studies. The creative industries also have a series of particularities in their management that can offer theories and ideas for other fields of studies on organizations since they involve a dynamic wrapped up in creativity and improvisation.

Creating meaning beyond creative work

The creative industries and, within them, the performing arts are full of constructions that involve the emotions of their professionals in creating products (Anjo, 2018; Everts & Haynes, 2021). From the perspective of strategy-as-practice, emotional subjectivity and the interpretation of activities transcend creation and plunge into daily activities. Understanding how individuals address this dichotomy of emotion in creative production and daily strategy can be an important way of contributing to strategy-as-practice in the creative industries.

Kohtamäki et al. (2022) define the grouping of meaning-making in strategic studies as a practice based on the subjective interpretation of those who plan and perform the activity through feeling and thought. These particularities are dealt with in the individual context of each professional and result in different meanings for the work because organizations have different natures and different people who understand their realities and have different cultural processes. Therefore, it is impossible to predict which behaviors and decisions in one place will bring similar results in another.

In the creative industries, the focus of creativity, especially in the arts, is very much on product development and less on the strategic process. The dichotomy between art and economics is apparent and difficult to reconcile, leading professionals to realize that understanding management processes makes creation lose its identity (Bendassolli & Wood Jr., 2010). Strategy-as-practice can help to reduce the difficulty of reconciling this, presenting elements that exceed the idea that the meaning of work exists only in creative production and exposing the need for management knowledge.

Creative sociomateriality

In a context where most of the activities and consumption of creative products take place in the technological environment of the internet, social and digital media, we can seek a better understanding of how strategic practices occur in this universe (Gandia & Tourancheau, 2015; Anjo, 2018). Developing creative projects, building and maintaining audiences, and publishing and selling products are intrinsically linked to technology and content production tools. This situation is evident from artistic production software, the use of social networks to build relationships with audiences, and the computer programs used by organizations in other industries for traditional management processes.

Considering the aspects described a strategy-as-practice can contribute to this reading of how professionals address the dynamics of technology in the daily life of organizations belonging to the creative industries. As described by Kohtamäki et al. (2022), in the sociomaterial grouping, we can see how the three relationship forms - the impact of physical materials on behavior, the interaction between objects and social activity, and the relationship between the material and the social - present themselves to professionals working in the field and to the development and implementation of strategy.

In today’s world, social relationships have primarily been transferred to the virtual world via social networks. Similarly, sales and consumer platforms have been created for several areas. This context has also taken place in the creative industries, although to the detriment of many professionals working in the field. However, as a reality that is hard to ignore, the need to place oneself in these places is fundamental to exercising social and professional activity. In this scenario, creative sociomateriality can contribute to studies of the creative industries.

CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES TO FUTURE RESEARCH ON STRATEGY-AS-PRACTICE

The creative industries, developed since the 1990s, are associated with economic and social changes that have shifted their focus from industrial activities to those based on knowledge and, essentially, in the service sector (Bendassolli et al., 2009). They are oriented towards an economic sector where capital is intellectually based and meets aesthetic needs (Inglehart, 1999). Activities such as architecture, handicrafts, fashion design, music, theater, dance, advertising, software, film, radio, and TV are included in the creative sector categories. These activities share the characteristic of dealing essentially with creativity for business development.

Bendassolli et al. (2009) defined three blocks to characterize the creative industries: the first block defines the form of production, whose key resource is creativity, defined as the “expression of the human potential for achievement”, manifested in the ability to manipulate symbols and meanings to generate innovation; the second block characterizes the product, based on the essential characteristic of infinite variety, in which there are no limits to the use of a creative product, associated with its perenniality, as they are not exhausted in consumption; the third and final block is the characteristics of consumption since in the case of the creative industries material consumption has been replaced by cultural consumption, with the agency on the part of the consumer in the cycles of economic value generation, albeit with unstable demand.

Although little research has been conducted on creative industries in the context of strategy-as-practice so far, they have relevant potential contributions to the field. These include strategic creativity and emotion management.

Strategic creativity

Strategic creativity is related to finding creative solutions to the most varied situations in individuals’ daily practices (Bendassolli et al., 2009). The ability of professionals to manipulate symbols and meanings, which is so common in the creative industries, can help people working in organizations in a wide variety of sectors to understand the meaning of their daily activities and the role played by the tools they use. This understanding, combined with creative exercise, facilitates the development of new ideas to deal differently - and even better - with adverse situations.

Perceived in some studies as “exotic” professions, activities in the creative industries have particularities that can be studied by researchers and management professionals for use in their respective areas (Oliveira, 2011). Studies such as Oliveira’s (2011), which analyze the possible lessons that management professionals can learn from the experiences of professionals in the arts and sports, for example, show that specific characteristics of this field differ from what can be understood as a tradition for management.

Accustomed to the need for improvisation in everyday work situations, people and organizations working in the creative industries tend to be more dynamic in finding solutions in different contexts (Barbosa & Davel, 2021). This essential capacity for everyday life in the creative industries can help develop skills and knowledge in the context of strategy-as-practice. As this field deals with the thinking and execution of strategic activities, it is natural that some decisions necessarily occur unexpectedly, requiring a selective capacity that involves improvisation and, therefore, strategic creativity.

Managing emotions

Emotions are a daily reality for individuals in the most varied life contexts, including organizations. The creative industries address people’s emotions daily, whether producers or consumers of the creative product (Bendassolli & Andrade, 2011). Whether it is a song, a book, or a piece of advertising, each creative product and its versions arouse some feeling or interpretation of the information it contains. Understanding how this is formed, its features, its effects on people, and its consequences is significant for professionals in organizations to find the best way to deal with the most different situations with the necessary balance and rationality.

The perception of emotions in the creative context is more clearly focused on the feelings generated by the product in individuals, whether creators or consumers. However, these feelings can also guide strategic and management decisions (Ávila & Davel, 2023). Although strategies are defined based on objective positions and calculated risks, the people responsible for them live immersed in situations that provoke subjective tensions that are interpreted differently, depending on who is carrying them out and when they occur. For this reason, it is important to understand how strategists form and manage emotions in their daily lives and how reactions to these tensions are configured.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

This article aimed to review academic production on strategy-as-practice in the creative industries. Starting with a systematic review of the publications that use these two fields of study, it was possible to present the state-of-the-art and relevance and look for absences and main challenges in studies in this field. The main contributions of strategy-as-practice to the creative industries and vice versa were then presented.

Twenty studies were identified, including articles, dissertations, and theses, that examine the two fields together. These studies indicated a slight increase in publications in recent years, although fewer than the potential presented. Regarding methodology, there is a tendency to conduct qualitative research aligned with traditional studies on strategy-as-practice, especially case studies, longitudinal research, and ethnography approaches. In creative industries, most studies are dedicated to the performing arts, mainly music groups and artists.

Two main areas of relevance were observed in the studies, characterized by everyday practices and public policies for the creative industries. However, both aspects include studies focused on strategic praxis in organizations, i.e., the daily practices of individuals, and a greater diversification of approaches is possible. The main contributions of strategy-as-practice in the field of creative industries identified were the understanding of daily praxis, the creation of meaning beyond creative work, and creative sociomateriality. In turn, the contributions of the creative industries to strategy as a perceived practice were strategic creativity and the management of emotions.

Understanding how strategy-as-practice is approached in academic production in creative industries can expand research in two fields that have become increasingly relevant in business studies. Identifying the theoretical-methodological approaches most used in studies in these fields is important to verify the existence of new possibilities that have been little explored or are still unexplored in these studies. As evidenced in the study by Kohtamäki et al. (2022), some groups are intensely explored in the conducted studies, and others are still little addressed, which may suggest study gaps, and the same can be identified from the contributions in this article.

This research is not intended to exhaust the relevance, absences, challenges, and contributions of studies on strategy-as-practice in the creative industries. On the contrary, it seeks to point out possible directions for further research and delving deeper into the fields, identifying and developing new perspectives for studying the creative industries. Strategy-as-practice and the creative industries have diverse approaches and possible theoretical and empirical paths that researchers can explore to broaden studies and contributions to professionals in this field.

In subsequent research, searching for studies that involve the fields of the creative industries but do not use this term in the body of their text may lead to an increase in the number of studies identified. The deliberate decision was not to expand this research because we could not find any study in literature reviews linking the fields of strategy-as-practice and the creative industries. As a result, although the path chosen here highlights a limitation of this work, it can serve as a stimulus for more extensive literature reviews in the fields, which could lead to studies that gather the several sub-areas in the creative industries field in greater depth.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their contributions and the support of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

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• DATA AVAILABILITY
  The entire data set supporting the results of this study was published in the article itself.
• REVIEWERS
  Serja Schmidt (Universidade Feevale, Novo Hamburgo / RS - Brazil). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5710-1828
• REVIEWERS
  One of the reviewers did not authorize the disclosure of their identity.
• PEER REVIEW REPORT
  The peer review report is available at this link: https://periodicos.fgv.br/rap/article/view/93585/87501
• 15
  [ Translated version ] Note: all quotes in English translated by this article’s translator.

Edited by

• EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
  Hélio Arthur Reis Irigaray (Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro / RJ - Brazil). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9580-7859

• ASSOCIATE EDITOR
  Fabricio Stocker (Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro / RJ - Brazil). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6340-9127

Data availability

The entire data set supporting the results of this study was published in the article itself.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  01 Sept 2025
• Date of issue
  2025

History

• Received
  03 June 2024
• Accepted
  16 Mar 2025