Spotlight on UK artisan entrepreneurs' situated collaborations: through the lens of entrepreneurial capitals and their conversion

Abstract

PurposeThe article's purpose is to demonstrate how UK artisan entrepreneurs organise entrepreneurial activities within the context of a creative industry organisation. The research asks how artisan entrepreneurs draw on contexts to manage entrepreneurial activities. The article investigates how these entrepreneurs organise collaborative business solutions through the lens of entrepreneurial capitals and their conversion.Design/methodology/approachThe research study employed a phenomenological approach to analyse the situated entrepreneurial activities of artisan entrepreneurs. Ethnographic methods assisted in capturing these activities.FindingsThe findings demonstrated the context-dependent collaborative business solutions by artisan entrepreneurs. Such solutions emerge from the interplay of the materiality of buildings, social relations management and personal resources. This materiality facilitates creative forms of social relations management for entrepreneurial activities between artisan entrepreneurs.Practical implicationsThe discussed entrepreneurial collaborative solutions are beneficial for many entrepreneurs in fragmented working conditions.Originality/valueThe detailed discussion of how artisan entrepreneurs organise entrepreneurial activities individually and collaboratively sheds light on dynamic microprocesses in context. The lens of entrepreneurial capitals and their conversion for these microprocesses integrates the literature on capital conversions with context as the main contribution to theory. This lens allows to home in on social relations and material environment management adding more fine-grained insights into how these micro-exchange processes work. These insights contribute to the literature on artisan entrepreneurship in the creative industries and entrepreneurship and context.

Resolving the Artisan Entrepreneur’s Oppositional Identity With Venturing in a Declining City Context

“…In some cases, artisan entrepreneurs repurpose abandoned buildings, spaces, and material in declining cities. This activity both supports local material infrastructure's sustainability (Guthey et al, 2014) and can support the social-relations dimension of entrepreneurship as artisans jointly occupy and interact (with one another and the local community) in repurposed space such as so-called makerspaces (Hill, 2021;Kapp, 2017;Ratten et al, 2019;Wolf-Powers et al, 2017). Once artisan entrepreneurs establish their physical working space in the city, they are often resistant to the idea of relocating, especially if staying put means their employees do not have to commute far and they do not somehow dilute their firms' images by moving to some industrial park or office park outside the city (Tregear, 2005).…”

“…Indeed, were the handicrafts not of suitable quality and distinctive appeal, the artisan entrepreneur would not be able to sell them. Some artisan handicrafts include textile and leather garments to wear, rugs to decorate floors, handcrafted leather wallets and purses, specialty soaps for bathing, craft beer to drink or ethnic food to eat, custom-baked goods like wedding cakes, custom-made ceramic and metal containers to use in the kitchen or in decorating, handmade jewelry, handmade musical instruments, and handmade wooden furniture and toys (Hill, 2021;Kapp, 2017;Kroezen et al, in press;Ratten et al, 2019;Wolf-Powers et al, 2017). The fact that artisan products and services usually have a practical use to the consumer versus solely an aesthetic appeal is perhaps what distinguishes such handicrafts from fine-art paintings, sculptures, recorded music, dance and theater productions, and so on that consumers also buy chiefly to look at or to listen to.…”

“…Many artisan entrepreneurs' businesses remain quite small and informal in survival mode, but some display at least lifestyle mode of operation (more formality and asset accumulation but little long-term growth in employee headcount or sales) or even deliberately managed, ongoing growth in locations, product lines, and employee headcount (Morris et al, 2018). Many artisan entrepreneurs' businesses are part-time endeavors, at least until they can generate enough income for the artisan to leave other employment and work full-time in their own firms (Hill, 2021;Wolf-Powers et al, 2017). Some artisan entrepreneurs are driven into self-employment of necessity after losing a job, whereas for others this venturing onset is a planned, deliberate choice not conditioned on dire necessity but instead on higher-order needs met by intrinsic satisfaction from plying their craft (Dencker et al, 2021;Hessels, van Gelderen, & Thurik, 2008).…”

“…Setting up house in the local area certainly increases the artisan entrepreneur's local ties. Setting up shop in local space only embeds the artisan firm all the more in the local community, especially as ensuing relationships develop with local customers, other artisan firms, and suppliers (Hill, 2021;Kapp, 2017;Shrivastava & Kennelly, 2013).…”

“…Artisan entrepreneurs are not usually what we might call typical, "mainstream entrepreneurs" (Hoyte, 2019;Solomon & Mathias, 2020), however, as one might surmise just from the label of "oppositional identity" being applied to artisan entrepreneurs. Also, unlike in European, Asian, and African research activity, artisan entrepreneurs get relatively little attention in the U.S. academy that produces the dominant discourse in entrepreneurship scholarship (Hill, 2021;Leitch & Harrison, 2016;Pret & Cogan, 2019). Another thing that gets scant attention in many studies is the place in which the venture occurs.…”