Managing cultural projects: Plural creativity as creative practice

Abstract

As powerful drivers of the creative economy, cultural projects rely on creative processes. The socio-economic and cultural development of contemporary societies depends on a type of management that involves the plurality of actors sustaining the creative process of cultural projects. This research is guided by the question: How does plural creativity constitute a creative practice in the management of cultural projects? The method of multi-sited and digital ethnography supported an inductive process that allowed us to engage to this question and produce a theorization. The analysis of narratives was based on sources such as documents, observations, and ethnographic interviews. The findings explain that plural creativity constitutes creative practices in the creation, promotion, and integration of cultural projects. These practices are based on creative relationality, which leads to three phenomena: creative playing driven by affection, creative boosting driven by criticism, and creative inspiration driven by constrains. The research contributes to the research and practice of project management by providing explanations and theorizations to support the strategic management of plural creativity in projects, especially cultural projects.