This sculpture, entitled Freedom by Zenos Frudakis, is about the struggle for achievement of freedom through the creative process.
Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/29923994@N03/6602008357
There is an increasingly large number of creative workers embedded within non-creative industries (Hearn 2014, p.84, emphasis in original). A report prepared by SGS Economics and Planning (2013) found that at least 43% of the creative workforce in Australia are 'embedded creatives' working in industries such as manufacturing, financial services, mining and healthcare. This marks an increase of 151% since 2006 (Green & Colley 2014).
Driving these high growth patterns in embedded creative occupations is the increasing awareness within businesses that creativity is a key enabler of value creation and hence of sustainable competitive advantage (Hearn, Rodrigues & Bridgstock 2014, p.175). The advent of information and communication technologies has seen creative services including design, advertising and marketing, and software and digital content become important inputs to other industries (Cunningham 2015, p.168). These areas require strong creative capabilities in order to design for, and to persuade, consumers (Hearn, Rodrigues & Bridgstock 2014, p.175).
Beyond the provision of creative expertise and the creation of graphics and communications, Bucolo (2015, p.113) suggests there is an untapped role for embedded creatives to work with organisations at a strategic level as either ‘catalysts’ or ‘mentors’ to drive competitiveness and the transformation of business models though user-centred innovation. This echoes the view of Ford (2014, p.286), who advocates the need for media studies scholars to take up an interventionist mantle in organisations with the goal of shifting corporate economic logics toward more social logics which focus on putting the audience at the centre of a company’s way of thinking.
Justifying his calls for creative 'interventions', Ford identifies several issues relating to the managerial processes and logics governing external communications in non-creative industries. According to Ford (2014, p.275), corporate leaders in non-creative industries often rise from financial divisions of the business rather than creative or communication roles. As a result, media development and communications are typically less understood and less of a priority among top corporate decision-makers and are seen as necessary evils that take away from profit margins (Ford 2014, p.280).
Amidst this profit-generating logic of executives outside the creative industries is an effort to simplify and quantify external audiences as "[…] an abstraction, a statistic, a target, a recipient, or even as a nuisance to be avoided, silenced, or otherwise dealt with as efficiently as possible" (Ford 2014, p.275). This commercial agenda disseminates throughout a company’s organisational chart, compelling employees to embrace a direct profit motivation at the expense of social considerations (Ford 2014, p.287). As Ford elucidates (2014, p.292), this is dangerous in that it impedes those charged with creating mediated communications texts from better understanding, listening to, empathising with and prioritising the wants and needs of the customers and communities who keep them in business.
As a media and communications student in my final year of study, the notion of creative interventions into other sectors has become a point of interest. It is apparent there is a strong need in the broader economy for media studies scholars to take on crucial roles in transforming corporate media policies to become more audience-centred. This not only presents emerging media and communications practitioners with a wide array of new career pathways but, very importantly, it also offers us a means of overcoming the precarity attributed to creative labour.
In contrast with the creative business micro-sector, employers in non-creative industries are often large and stable organisations with deep pockets (Hearn 2015, p.104). Subsequently, embedded creatives are more likely to work full-time and on an ongoing basis compared with specialist creatives who exhibit 'portfolio career' patterns (Hearn & Bridgstock 2014, p.53). Potts and Shehadeh (2014, p.52) confirm these ideas, reporting that total income, pay satisfaction, job security and hours worked are higher for embedded creatives than for those working within the creative industries.
In order to harness the benefits that come with the emergence of new embedded positions, learning how to navigate and negotiate a professional role within a transdisciplinary context has become paramount. Zelonko and Bridgstock (2014, p.211) highlight the significance for emerging creative practitioners to cultivate the necessary skills to successfully cross disciplinary boundaries.
One such skill is the ability to overcome the organisational roadblocks and cultural challenges which serve to impede embedded creative work. Hearn and Bridgstock (2014, p.52) contend that embedded creatives may need to create unruly spaces within large bureaucracies, cultural knowledge may not be valued as strongly as within specialist firms and creative knowledge may be more instrumentalised. This is supported by Rodgers (2015, p.19) who found that companies in other sectors may not be accommodating environments for creative practitioners to innovate. Rather, embedded creatives are treated as "[…] invited guests in a legitimated framework" (Laaksonen & Gardner 2012, p.25). As Ford (2014, p.292) suggests, those who manage communications and media creation are expected to conform to profit-driven forms of measurement – largely quantitative in nature – and often develop policies against their own creative and human instincts in an effort to maintain or gain respect within the prevailing business logic of their organisation.
Due to these constraints, the capacity of media and communications practitioners to challenge business orthodoxies and intervene in corporate discourse is debatable. This is especially the case for creative industries graduates whose power to advocate for media policy changes is inherently limited due to their lower-level status within organisational hierarchies. The question arises then, how can we achieve meaningful interventions in other sectors and disciplines with different conceptual languages, methodologies and strategies?
Given a paucity of detailed empirical work in the area to date, there is a lack of literature to satisfactorily explain how creative interventions take place to innovate and appropriate value in non-creative settings.
In his essay on the subject, Ford (2014, p.277) argues there is "[…] a greater need for media studies scholars to understand the environments, processes and relationships shaping communication and media strategy within companies outside the media industries and the profound effect internal communication processes have on external communication." While this statement may have intellectual appeal, it provides little guidance for those of us crossing disciplinary boundaries and engaging with a different, unfamiliar world.
In order to determine how best to aid media studies scholars in undertaking creative interventions, I have conducted an exploratory case study examining the contribution creative practitioners can make to the banking sector of the Australian economy. According to figures from the 2006 and 2011 Australian censuses, the highest proportion of embedded creative workers are employed in the finance and insurance services industries, of which banking forms a part (Goldsmith 2014, p.145). This research involved interviewing a Senior Manager at a mutual bank to gain an appreciation of the major issues and challenges currently facing the sector that support the need for creative interventions at a more strategic level.
Following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, banks suffered a substantial loss of public trust (Haldane 2016). Banks around the world have been publicly criticised for pursuing a myopic strategy of maximising short-term revenues and profits ahead of the expectations and long-term interests of customers, investors and the general public (Gillespie & Owen 2013, p.8).
In Australia, the loss of consumer confidence and trust has been exacerbated by prominent banking scandals including the alleged manipulation of the bank bill swap rate, unfair life insurance claim rejections and poor financial advice (Eyers 2016). These conduct issues have led to calls for a Royal Commission into the Australian banking sector and the concentration of the market powers of the 'big four' banks (Schmulow & Longstaff 2016).
Faced with the need to rebuild reputation and trust, financial institutions have been embarking on customer-centric transformation strategies to not only enhance customer satisfaction but also to achieve sustainable growth and return to above-average profitability (Auerbach et al. 2012). While this may be a desirable goal, the legacy infrastructure, profit-oriented culture and established business models of banks means that the journey towards greater customer-centricity is not an easy endeavour (Ernest & Young 2013). According to the Senior Manager, "Although a customer-centric culture is often discussed as a bank’s top priority, it is difficult to draw direct connections between customer focused initiatives and revenue. Faced with the need to re-align their entire business model towards the customer, the personal risk-reward ratio for key decision makers in the industry often remains titled in favour of the status quo."
Digital transformation is now one of the most critical strategic issues facing bank executives (Tapestry Networks 2014). The Senior Manager observed,
“Banking is no longer a place you go to, but rather something you do. […] Increasingly, customers are demanding that banking services come to them, when and where they want them, and they expect to receive an almost immediate response to their requests. Customers expect their multi-channel movement between branch, call centre and mobile to be synced and seamless.”
Increased competition from new entrants into retail banking such as PayPal, Square, Apple Pay, Google Wallet and other digital wallet providers is also forcing banks to invest in improved customer service and the technology to match these new players’ offerings (Ernest & Young 2015).
The rapid customer uptake of digital technologies presents a major opportunity for banks to deepen customer satisfaction and loyalty, driving long-term relationships and profitability (DeLaCastro et al. 2014). However, digital technology has not yet transformed banking the way it has other industries (Tapestry Networks 2014). A combination of cultural legacies and pressure from stringent regulation and close supervision militates against risk-taking and imposes conservatism and caution in banks in the process of developing and implementing new ideas to remain relevant in the digital age (Coras 2014).
With the increasing popularity of social media, banks are making efforts to leverage this medium to reinforce and strengthen customer engagement and to deliver a consistent multi-channel experience (Suvarna & Banerjee 2014). However, due to banks’ traditional hierarchical organisational structures and the highly regulated nature of the industry, these efforts have been somewhat thwarted (Lee, Mathena & Goodall 2014). According to Suvarna and Banerjee (2014), the current banking focus has been restricted simply to creating a social media presence rather than engaging audiences to develop a cohesive, vibrant and dedicated online community. This was noted by the Senior Manager,
“In the majority of banks, social media efforts are predominantly managed by marketing and communication departments without any real alignment to other parts of the business. This siloed approach has resulted in a lack of engagement, minimal fan growth and social presences that represent almost ghost-like communities.”
Despite the efforts of banks to transform their business models, there remains an overarching question as to whether this is sufficient to address the conduct issues that are systemic in the industry. In a recent speech given by Andrew Haldane, Bank of England’s Chief Economist, it was suggested that a ‘great divide’ currently exists between the perceptions of producers and consumers of financial services (Haldane 2016). Haldane (2016) observes that the trust deficit debate to date has been between financial elites and that the cultural problem in banking may be deeply ingrained – psychologically and sociologically. This highlights the need for a very different dialogue and an important role for creative practitioners to play in ensuring there are opportunities to hear from a more divergent set of views and voices: specifically, from the customers and users of finance.
An implication of the rapidly changing face of the banking industry is the need for creative practitioners to be able to identify and successfully target shifting customer expectations and industry standards while remaining responsive to change. In particular, management processes, their forms and structures, and the policies that influence creative interventions, need to be understood and articulated.
Ford (2014, p.293) argues that opportunities for intervention at a strategic level are shaped by the divergent managerial processes and practices of an organisation including internal and external communication strategies, corporate infrastructure, regulation, measurement and reward systems and approaches to customer centricity and the use of social media. These key factors influencing intervention strategies formed the basis of an interview with a Manager Member Experience working in a mutual bank. The purpose of the interview was to identify areas not addressed in Ford's essay that may be relevant in guiding creative interventions.
While Ford (2014, p.291) alludes to the importance of leadership in intervention strategies, noting that the profit-generating logic of companies and views of interventions as "nice-to-have", impacts a company's willingness to act on new ways of thinking, the Manager Member Experience asserted that the leadership mindset of an organisation is paramount to change efforts,
“We need the right infrastructure to support customer-centric strategies. We talk about sales targets but not vision, mission and values. These internal structures drive employees to aspire to achieve.”
Ford (2014, p.291) also argues that interventions cannot be achieved “[…] when the conversation turns immediately to ROI […]”. The Manager cautioned, however, not to underestimate the importance of ROI in driving customer centricity, “ROI is the only way to get interventions to work due to banks’ financial imperatives and shareholders. There is a marriage, not a tension, between customer centricity and ROI in the long term.”
According to the Manager, media studies scholars also need to be cognisant of the use of customer relationship management, social media analytics and big data – specifically how to leverage the data held about customers to deliver personal, unique and timely experiences; the corporate “listening” structures in place – including the nature and frequency of customer research; as well as the organisation’s resource capability to undertake change – in particular its willingness to invest in human capital.
Other factors identified by the Manager as being absent from Ford’s analysis include an organisation’s internal communication capabilities, “Is there a vacuum of knowledge as to what’s happening? […] You can never over-communicate”, and also its history of change management, “Change management practices may be stronger in some organisations”.
Finally, the Manager emphasised the importance of organisational culture, which was described as a byproduct of all the influencers,
“You need to assess the current and preferred organisational culture. Just look at Apple and Google. We need to allow employees to respectfully challenge ideas and the mindset of 'we’ve always done it that way’.”
The Manager also suggested the term ‘intervention’ carries negative connotations in what is intended to be a collaborative setting, “‘Intervention’ can elicit a defensive reaction, immediately putting management offside.” This is reinforced by Swan (2015, p.184), who argues that interactions between creative and other industries may be better explained as patterns of ‘interoperability’. Thus, the idea of embedded creative interoperability is proposed to suggest the mutual interaction and integration of knowledge exchanges between creatives and host firms that foster innovation (Swan & Hearn 2014, p.61). Similarly, Laaksonen and Gardner (2012, p.3) suggest the notion of ‘creative intersections’ to refer to interactive collaborations between individuals, groups and organisations from the field of arts and culture and those in other disciplines or sectors.
Drawing on the considerations above, together with Ford's nuanced observations of the managerial issues relating to corporate communications, I have developed a conceptual framework where the tension between corporate economic logics and social logics is recast under a different light. The framework recognises that management logics do not represent oppositional points of intervention but rather a continuum to guide creative practitioners to analyse the key environmental influences shaping corporate media practices. This is important when considering the appropriateness of an intervention (intersection) strategy and will ensure more effective outcomes better aligned to an organisation’s needs. My hope is that media and communications practitioners can employ this framework not only as a guide to assess an organisation’s readiness for implementing media policy changes but also as a discussion tool with management to agree on the extent of change desired.
Despite new problems presenting themselves across the economy that creative practitioners can help to solve, the phenomenon of embedded creativity remains a subject of concern. There is a strong desire for the creative industries to be valued in its own right and not just seen as a solution to problems that other sectors have not solved (Laaksonen & Gardner 2012, p.40). O'Connor (2014), for example, argues that "The cultural economy sits […] not as a marketing and social media adjunct for the financial services but as a crucial contribution to the livelihoods of thousands of people and to the joys and meanings of lives lived individually and collectively." In this view, a focus on economy-wide creative contributions dissipates a sectoral focus on the specific needs, dynamics and cultural value of the creative industries.
As Australia ushers into an 'ideas boom’, however, there is much that can be learned from the cross-fertilisation of skills and capabilities across industry sectors. Despite creativity and management having been positioned historically as opposing concepts, there is an increasing convergence of cultural policy and business management (Bilton 2010, p.255). Yet hindering this collaboration are gaps in the knowledge and understanding of creative industries graduates facing transdisciplinary conditions. Bridgstock (2011, p.5) argues that many creative industries graduates may not be aware of, and/or are reluctant to consider, options outside their core specialisms. Creative industries students need to be encouraged to engage with embedded creative employment options and to reflect on the professional possibilities and potential value of their practice in other industries.
Most importantly, however, companies need to capitalise on the skills and knowledge of embedded creatives by listening to their ideas and allowing for greater creative freedom. This will require a mind shift in facilitating the organisational context and conditions under which creativity or creative activity thrives. To quote Schloeffel (2015, p.54),
“As any architect will tell you, a building is only as good as its foundations. And while foundations may not be an architect’s passion, they make possible what is.”
