The Resilience and Adaptability of an Innovative Ecosystem of Creative Entrepreneurs During Crisis Times: Baltic Creative CIC – A Case Study

Abstract

This empirical chapter explores the case of Baltic Creative Community Interest Company, a creative hub that enabled and demonstrated intrapersonal entrepreneurial capitals (Pret, Shaw and Drakopoulou Dodd 2016) to adapt quickly and develop novel offers for their tenants during an unprecedented period of crisis and change in the wider ecosystem.Baltic Creative CIC is a community owned property development company established to regenerate an underused post-industrial area in Liverpool and support the Creative and Digital community. Over the past decade, they have become a creative hub where small, unique micro businesses thrive alongside more established enterprises.Using an organisational ethnographic approach, we highlight the complexity in the conversion of entrepreneurial capitals and how this has demonstrated resilience and adaptability in the CIC during the global coronavirus pandemic in the 2020s. During the first coronavirus lockdown in 2020, they responded swiftly to tenants by providing a wide variety of business support initiatives. Regular communications on sector specific Covid-19 operational guidance and a support programme to help tenants apply for Liverpool City Council Small Business Support grants.The establishment of this hub for creative entrepreneurs prior to the recent disruption proved invaluable. Although they were severely tested, emerging behaviours were identified, agility, adaptability, and resilience during periods of crisis. This chapter offers key insights for scholars and those leading on creative hubs and cluster policy development and economic initiatives for creative sector support regionally, nationally, and internationally.