Social entrepreneurship through cultural heritage-CHEER - EN

Cultural heritage entrepreneurship occupies a central place in debates on unlocking the innovative, nontechnological potential of SEE area taking into consideration the diversity and rich culture of the countries’ history in the respective zone. The aim of this course is to provide some important aspects regarding the obstacles faced by CHE, especially in the case of SMEs which represent the major part of entrepreneurship in this domain. At the same time, we intent to present some transversal problems and recommendations related to possible ways the CHE could benefit from internal and EU market and the digital impact.

In this context we are focusing on the importance of national and international factors playing the role of key determinants for strengthening of entrepreneurship such as:

• efficient access to funding;

• innovation challenges;

• market obstacles;

• intellectual property rights;

• training and education;

• national and international cooperation.

CH entrepreneurship represents an important component of cultural entrepreneurship which becomes an important factor contributing to countries GDP, labour force market development, to export and import of goods and services.ⁱ Although there is no consensus on CHE definition, the OECD EUROSTAT Entrepreneurship Indicator Project reveals six important areas for CHE efficiency and well-functioning such as:

• access to finance;

• technology and R&D;

• entrepreneurial capability;

• market conditions;

• regulatory framework;

• entrepreneurial culture.

Cultural Heritage (CH) entrepreneurs, with the particular case of SME, operate in specific market conditions, offer goods and services the nature of which is mainly cultural, content-driven and less commercially-driven.

CH entrepreneurs bring to market goods and services, organise and run cultural heritage in a commercial or not-for-profit manner, depending on the characteristics of cultural heritage (as an assets, cultural capital or as a pure public good).

CHE tries to cope with the strategic objectives of cultural environmental, social, economic and entrepreneurship policies. CHE involves an important dimension spirit of creativity where the first priority could be considered cultural value and a second one the economic value or vice versa. In many cases, CHE prefer the economic motivation, exploitation over the cultural value. The large diversity of CH generates many types of direct and propagated effect on different time horizon. The major part of CH activities consists of small enterprises, micro SMEs 1-3 employees. The larger enterprises (more than 50 employees) are the most important part of the turnover (revenues) in the sector, although their share in the total number of CH enterprises is less than 1 per cent. This size characteristic of CH enterprises called “missing middle” impose important differentiation for policy-makers especially for funding conditions of micro-enterprises facing difficulties to grow into medium-sized ones. Large scale enterprises have the advantage of effective infrastructure for development and research activities. Small-scale enterprises have higher dynamism, better flexibility and lower, risk-taking. Adaptation of a more flexible and dynamic attitude in response to market opportunities, in clustering with larger infrastructure, involving out sourcing. The population accessibility of CH products and services is a fundamental factor for maintaining communities’ identity, legacy and possibilities of national and international contacts, in the context of good practices and sustainable strategic management. A high responsibility belongs to the public sector as the most important custodian of CH assets, interested in the respect of local, regional and national cultural features and the appropriation of cultural values by the population.

A key factor for the promotion of CH is the access to knowledge and education, oriented to improve the awareness and ethics of CH care, capacity building and professional training programs, establishment of appropriate levels of training in accordance with different categories of stakeholders or beneficiaries. The CH product accessibility depends to an important extent on the character and typology of the respective product from the entrepreneurial viewpoint. The existing literature distinguishes several types categories of CHE.ⁱⁱ One of the most useful CHE classification is that which differentiates between a) profit-making, b) non-for-profit entrepreneurship and c) a socially-oriented hybrid formula of the first two types. In the case of not-for-profit CHE the product accessibility as a rule is relatively larger. Economic-oriented hybrid CHE is aiming at profit-making in the framework of different schemes of public-private partnerships. The main scope of socially-oriented hybrid CHE is the increase of social education and wellbeing of population which in turn generates several vertically and horizontally positive propagated effects at micro, mezzo and macro levels.