Managing vision and the brand within the creative industries

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to help answer "To what degree can creative employees be encouraged or motivated to align with a leader's creative vision and what issues may be faced along the way?" The management and communication of vision in relation to the organisational brand within the creative industries can face many unique challenges. Design/methodology/approach - As much of the existing creativity literature at an organisational level is not empirically based, a rigorous, inductive and exploratory case study approach was employed to explore emergent issues relating to the management and communication of the brand within creative small to medium-sized organisations. Recent research attempts to uncover the link between organisational creativity and the brand are reviewed. The inductive case study approach undertaken is discussed. This incorporates interviews and thematic analysis with the aid of various qualitative data software packages. Findings - The inductively generated themes uncover interrelating issues of relevance to owners and managers relating to: vision and alignment; creative growth; creative evaluation and rewards. The themes also help to draw attention to some of the potential barriers to achieving a desired or effective creative brand. Originality/value - It can be argued that by taking an exploratory and inductive approach, a wide number of potential effects on creativity and the ensuing brand have been identified. Practitioners within the creative industries can potentially benefit from the observations because they are empirically based rather than being purely theoretical, and focus on both employees and clients. These also appear to go beyond the themes identified within previous studies within these same creative industry sectors. The investigation and reflections may act as a useful starting-point for further research into the formation and management of a creative brand. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.