Innovation and entrepreneurship in Romania’s cultural and creative industries

The evolution of entrepreneurship in the cultural and creative sectors leads to social innovation by creating new jobs intended for the creative class and by building a long-run smart, sustainable and inclusive local development. Innovation and sustainability are concepts that can be applied to many industries, and they can involve numerous improvements related but not limited to processes, products, services, logistics. This paper supports the idea that the creative and cultural sectors can develop through innovative entrepreneurship, by introducing new methods of production, optimizing existing processes, improving the delivery methods or by developing new products or services, while also relying on the help of the government and smart organizations such as clusters. Since innovation involves improving the way of doing business, this paper will focus on identifying the available innovative methods that can be applied to the businesses activating in the cultural and creative sectors of the economy in Romania, together with the main challenges and opportunities that might arise by applying them. The perspectives of intellectual capital, creative economy and knowledge-based society in relation to the impact of innovation and entrepreneurship towards the development of the cultural and creative sectors in Romania will also be considered. The paper will also tackle a series of best practice examples of innovative businesses in the creative sectors, as well as a comparative analysis of the successfully implemented innovative ideas in this field of activity and their impact on the customer satisfaction and on the development of the local economy.