Success in the creative industries: the push for enterprising and entrepreneurial skills

This paper focuses on the complex issues associated with the education of creative and performing artists for successful employment in the creative industries. While there is an emerging body of research that promotes enterprising or entrepreneurial skills as necessary to secure viable and sustainable careers in the creative industries, the inclusion of these areas in tertiary programs remains contested. To explore the extent to which a greater focus on these skills is necessary in undergraduate curricula, completed surveys were obtained from a sample of ninety-eight graduates from regional north-eastern Australia in order to gain insights into their employment experiences and reflections on their learning. The findings reveal a number of insights into the experiences and realities for graduates in terms of employment in the creative industries, including the challenges some face in securing employment in their preferred area of practice, as well as reflections on a number of enterprising or entrepreneurial skills argued to be missing from their learning. The findings provide further evidence of the demonstrated need for higher education curricula to focus more significantly on enterprising or entrepreneurial skills, in order to better equip graduates for potential employment success in the creative industries.