The Innovative Response of Cultural and Creative Industries to Major European Societal Challenges: Toward a Knowledge and Competence Base

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, this is a paper with a very good potential that addresses a topic of increasing importance (CCI) by focusing on EU agenda. However, there are several weaknesses that need to be addressed. Please see below my more detailed comments/propositions:

In the section "4.1 Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Job Creation", please read the following articles about women in CCI and incorporate / cite them in your analysis, by arguing that entrepreneurship in CCI has empowered the women.

• Henry, C. (2009). Women and the creative industries: exploring the popular appeal. Creative Industries Journal, 2(2).
• Mylonas, N., & Petridou, E. (2018). Venture performance factors in creative industries: a sample of female entrepreneurs. Gender in Management: An International Journal.
• LEOVARIDIS, C., BAHNĂ, M., & CISMARU, D. M. (2018). Between motherhood and entrepreneurship: insights on women entrepreneurs in the creative industries. Challenging the Status Quo in Management and Economics, 1383.

Another idea in this section (4.1) is to argue how entrepreneurship in CCI supports also other excluded groups in EU societies. You can refer to Social Entrepreneurship initiatives. 

After the section "7. Discussion" and before "8. Conclusions", you have to provide a future research section with some propositions produced by your in-depth analysis. You have to call the researchers to address any existing gaps in the literature. This part is very important in a conceptual article. 

In line 246 you used for first time in the text the "R&I" - please write Research and Innovation (hence R&I).

Figure I (line 608) is not so clear/obvious, especially the first lane before the graph. In the graph of four pillars, you have included a lot of information - please emphasize more on some issues

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 1,

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

In Section "4.1 Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Job Creation" we have integrated the analysis with women’s (and mothers’) entrepreneurship in the CCI and referred to the useful references you suggested. We have also linked cultural and creative entrepreneurship with social entrepreneurship, and referred to an additional reference about.

In order to suggest interesting paths for future research, after Section 7 “Discussion”, we have moved some parts from the last section “Conclusions” to a new Section 8 “Future research”.

We have also changed “R&I” to Research & Innovation in line 255 (previous line 246).

Finally, in Section 7, we have expanded the discussion about Figure 1, which graphically summarises previous Sections 2-6.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The article at a high scientific level and very qualitatively discussed the importance of Сulture, Сultural Нeritage and the Сreative Industries in modern European politics in relation to solving a complex of social problems. The main CCI's pillars face to EU major societal challenges are very well represented in Figure 1.

At the same time (possibly due to the format of the scientific review), the article does not present a research hypothesis and does not provide empirical confirmation of the indicated theses and an analysis of the impact of the Сulture, Сultural Нeritage and the Сreative Industries on societal challenges.

To enhance the practical significance and quality of the research, it would be possible to display in the form of a diagram the mechanisms of the spread of the spillover effects of the Сulture, Сultural Нeritage and the Сreative Industries development and their influence on the innovative processes of the economy and society.

Also, based on the analysis carried out, it would be possible to formulate the author's recommendations for the development of CCI and propose policies and mechanisms for their support.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 2,

 

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

 

Indeed, our approach consists in a scientific review. As we present our study in the first section, we claim that, as our major assumption, the CCI represent an innovative response to major societal challenges. in Sections 2-4 we disentangle the multi-layered response of the CCI for each dimension of the challenges. To more clearly illustrate that, in the new version of the manuscript, last paragraph of Section 1, we have more clearly explained the organisation of our study in its sections.

 

Thank you for your suggestion about a spillover diagram, which we believe further valorise the contribution of Figure 1. In fact, spillover effects are implied in this figure, as we have explained in the revised version of the manuscript, also by means also of an example, in the first paragraph of Section 7 – Discussion. At a more operational level, Figure 1 can also support useful recommendations for policy for the development of CCI and propose policies and mechanisms for their support, as you suggested in your last comment, and we integrated in the same paragraph.

 

Finally, in the new Section 8 Future research and policy recommendations we have offered interesting paths for further research, in particular to support recommendations for the development of CCI and corresponding policies.

 

 

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for the opportunity of reviewing this study. The authors have conducted a throughout research on the subject of CCI in Europe and demonstrate to be very familiar with the subject. The article is overall well-structured and easy to follow.　I have, however, a few comments:

• My main issue is that academic value needs to be emphasized. The paper mainly describes CCI from the viewpoint of different European organizations, which is certainly an important issue. However, the manuscript presents itself as a scholarly study; therefore, its main value should be academic. The inclusion of a theoretical framework to discuss CCI may help to engage the paper in wider academic discussions. If the objective was to review previous studies on CCI, bibliographic tools and methods should be applied and explained in a Methods section.

 

• While I understand that the paper is reviewing past studies and official documents, a methodology section should be included to understand how the study was carried out. Was there any specific timeframe? How were the reviewed documents and studies selected?

 

• Regarding format: in the References section, some references are written in a different font. Please revise the format.

 

• There are also some writing mistakes in the References section. For example, Ashworth et al (2007) have an unneeded ‘:’ and has the ‘&’ missing before the last author. Also, Benghozi & Salvador (2016) is written as ‘Benghozi, P.-J., & Salvador, E. (2016)’. Revise the References carefully.

 

• Finally, while the manuscript is readable and easy to follow, there are some minor style issues. For example, two sentences in lines 612 and 613 start with the same words ‘In particular’. In line 526, there is a _ that is out of context. Revise the manuscript carefully.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 3,

 

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

To better enhance the academic value and theoretical framework of the paper, we have integrated and restructured part of Section 1 “Introduction”. In particular, we have more clearly distinguished our conceptual and theoretical perspective about the CCI (lines 50-59 p.2) from its policy implications (lines 60-83 p.2).

 

From a methodological perspective, please notice that, as we have explained in Section 1 “Introduction”, this paper follows a normative approach that draws on a review of relevant scholarly and policy literature. Its aim is to clarify the role placed in the CCI by current European policies in relation to these four societal challenges and discuss how the CCI are considered to innovatively respond to such challenges.

 

 

We have uniformed the References section to font Palatino 9.

 

We have carefully re-checked the whole manuscript, including the References section, and corrected misspellings and mistakes.

 

We have also made the minor changes in line 540 (previous 526) and in line 635 (previous 612 and 613).

 

 

Reviewer 4 Report

Excellent submission. It should be checked for minor corrections in footnotes and bibliography.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer 4,

 

Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

 

We have read the manuscript carefully again and made some corrections. We have also made some more correction in the Reference section.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for having the opportunity to revise once again this manuscript. I can see that the authors have addressed the comments from the previous comments, so I do not have further comments regarding the content. Still, there are minor issues with the format. For example, footnotes have different fonts. Before the paper is published, these details should be addressed.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks for your perspicacity.

We have now 

• changed all footnotes to Palantino Linotype 9 
• changed to a uniform left margin and
• deleted extra space.