The growth of enterprises in the creative industries: the tricky world of ambitions

The cultural and creative industries have been shown to have a considerable share of theeconomy in recent decades, and therefore creative enterprises are often considered carriersof economic development that will drive growth and jobs in cities and regions. However, itis often confusing which business growth expectations should be considered in the contextof creative companies. Do the creative companies themselves value growth, and what ismeant by that growth? The objective of this article is to find an analysis model to describethe willingness of these companies to grow and the differences in growth orientationsamong creative companies? The article makes use of an empirical study among incubatortenants in Estonia and reveals the motivation for starting their business alongside theirgrowth orientations. The results show that creative enterprises are established based on selfactualisationendeavours, but this does not distinguish their ambitions toward growingtheir companies. The study describes three different types of creative companies in theirrelation to growth.Jel classification: D22, O38Keywords: creative industries, creative entrepreneurship, company growth, analysis model