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

Abstract

Purpose

The 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/approach

The research study employed a phenomenological approach to analyse the situated entrepreneurial activities of artisan entrepreneurs. Ethnographic methods assisted in capturing these activities.

Findings

The 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 implications

The discussed entrepreneurial collaborative solutions are beneficial for many entrepreneurs in fragmented working conditions.

Originality/value

The 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.

Citation

Hill, I.R. (2021), "Spotlight on UK artisan entrepreneurs' situated collaborations: through the lens of entrepreneurial capitals and their conversion", International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, Vol. 27 No. 1, pp. 99-121. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-11-2019-0642