Creative industries, flexibility, and travel to work

School offorsomething Institute Transport Studies FACULTY Faculty of Environment OF OTHER Creative Industries, Flexibility, and Travel to Work Julian Burkinshaw ITS Summer Seminar Series 16th June 2015 Introduction My background and interests: • 2nd year PhD Student • Graduate from the University of Salford • Undergraduate dissertation focussed upon a Workplace Travel Plan • Interests in commuting, travel to work, working practices, flexibility Introduction • The story so far… • Creativity and Creative Industries • Fixity and Flexibility • Theory and conceptualisation • Questions and hypotheses • Approach The story so far… • Workplace travel planning • The Commute • Backcasting/future of commuting • Global Perspectives • My approach… Creativity and Creative Industries ‘The key to economic growth lies not just in the ability to attract the ‘creative class’, but to translate that underlying advantage into creative economic outcomes in the form of new ideas, new high-tech businesses and regional growth’ (Florida, 2002 p.2) ‘…it seems as if human capital, especially the ability to handle large amounts of information and to come up with bright ideas, has surpassed financial capital, raw materials, and labour in general as the key resources for economic progress’ (Bontje and Musterd, 2009 p.843) Creativity and Creative Industries The concept of creative industries emerged in the late 1990s primarily as a policy discourse, …its origins can be traced to the decision of the then newly elected British Labour government of Tony Blair to establish a Creative Industries Task Force (CITF), as a central activity of its new Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) (Flew and Cunningham, 2010 p.113) ‘Creative work facilitates autonomy and flexibility, with informality and diversity seemingly regarded as key characteristics of the creative workforce’ (Henry, 2009 p.149) Working practices Flexible working practices have become an increasingly popular initiative within many organisations, with the merits and disadvantages associated discussed at length within the literature: • • Work-life balance discussions in women participating in labour market • Intensification of work • Blurred boundaries between home and work • Job satisfaction and quality Fixity and Flexibility There is a lack of consensus over what flexible working actually is! For instance, these concepts are visible in the literature: • • • • • Schedule Control Flexible work practices Flexible work arrangements Job Control Job Autonomy ‘transportation geographers commonly denote activities as fixed or flexible on the basis of their purpose or type Roughly speaking, paid employment, education, sleep, and transporting children or other persons are considered fixed, and shopping and leisure are regarded as flexible’ (Schwanen, Kwan and Ren, 2008 p.2110) The Role of Responsibility Responsibilities, mainly those associated to the household, have interesting effects on the way people travel to work For example: • Residential location Amongst which, residential environment often prevails over travel mode preference (Schwanen and Mokhtarian, 2005) • The presence of children in the household Findings were associated to gendered differences in commuting times (McQuaid and Chen, 2012) Theory and conceptualisation Social practice: Social practice theory pertains that people (as practitioners) when doing things like walking, driving or cooking, and in the case of this research; working, they actively combine elements from which the practices are made (Shove et al., 2012) These elements are Materials, Competences and Meanings It is anticipated that through discussions of participants’ ‘everyday practices’ regarding work, travel and responsibilities, insight into how and why these are produced will be explored Hopefully this approach will identify avenues for travel demand reduction through practice reconfiguration Theory and conceptualisation Creative industries/occupations = ↑ opportunities in flexibility ↑ opportunities in flexibility = ↓ travel demand / ↑ lower carbon Questions and hypotheses How work is structured has an important impact on how people travel to work Those with greater flexibility in determining their own working practices have greater potential to be flexible with how they travel to work Where there is greater possibility for flexibility, reducing overall travel demand and/or choosing lower carbon options are contingent on a multitude of factors, namely (household) responsibilities and activities Questions and hypotheses Does the structure of work have important impacts on daily schedules? In what ways does flexibility influence travel to work? How (household) responsibilities influence travel to work decisions, and for whom are these decisions most impacting? What would be required to reduce overall travel demand and/or lead to an increase use in lower carbon options? Approach Design • Comparative Case-study • Purposive Sampling • Architects vs Accountants • SMEs Methodology • Two semi-structured interviews ‘The experience of these SMEs showed that a greater degree of genuine flexibility is possible in the small-scale context where relationships are understood and working conditions are clear and visible’ (Dex and Scheibl, 2001 p.411) Questions and hypotheses Thank you for you attention Any Questions? Approach References: BONTJE, M & MUSTERD, S 2009 Creative industries, creative class and competitiveness: Expert opinions critically appraised Geoforum, 40, 843-852 DEX, S & SCHEIBL, F 2001 Flexible and family-friendly working arrangements in UK-based SMEs: business cases British Journal of Industrial Relations, 39, 411-431 FLEW, T & CUNNINGHAM, S 2010 Creative industries after the first decade of debate The information society, 26, 113123 FLORIDA, R 2002 The Rise of the Creative Class Cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race Washington Monthly, 34, 15-26 HENRY, C 2009 Women and the creative industries: exploring the popular appeal Creative Industries Journal, 2, 143 MCQUAID, R W & CHEN, T 2012 Commuting times – The role of gender, children and part-time work Research in Transportation Economics, 34, 66-73 SCHWANEN, T., KWAN, M.-P & REN, F 2008 How fixed is fixed? Gendered rigidity of space–time constraints and geographies of everyday activities Geoforum, 39, 2109-2121 SCHWANEN, T & MOKHTARIAN, P L 2005 What affects commute mode choice: neighborhood physical structure or preferences toward neighborhoods? Journal of Transport Geography, 13, 83-99 SHOVE, E., PANTZAR, M & WATSON, M 2012 The dynamics of social practice: everyday life and how it changes, Sage [...]...Theory and conceptualisation Creative industries/occupations = ↑ opportunities in flexibility ↑ opportunities in flexibility = ↓ travel demand / ↑ lower carbon Questions and hypotheses How work is structured has an important impact on how people travel to work Those with greater flexibility in determining their own working practices have greater potential to be flexible with how they travel to work Where... possibility for flexibility, reducing overall travel demand and/ or choosing lower carbon options are contingent on a multitude of factors, namely (household) responsibilities and activities Questions and hypotheses 1 Does the structure of work have important impacts on daily schedules? 2 In what ways does flexibility influence travel to work? 3 How do (household) responsibilities influence travel to work decisions,... relationships are understood and working conditions are clear and visible’ (Dex and Scheibl, 2001 p.411) Questions and hypotheses Thank you for you attention Any Questions? Approach References: BONTJE, M & MUSTERD, S 2009 Creative industries, creative class and competitiveness: Expert opinions critically appraised Geoforum, 40, 843-852 DEX, S & SCHEIBL, F 2001 Flexible and family-friendly working arrangements... 39, 411-431 FLEW, T & CUNNINGHAM, S 2010 Creative industries after the first decade of debate The information society, 26, 113123 FLORIDA, R 2002 The Rise of the Creative Class Cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race Washington Monthly, 34, 15-26 HENRY, C 2009 Women and the creative industries: exploring the popular appeal Creative Industries Journal, 2, 143 MCQUAID,... schedules? 2 In what ways does flexibility influence travel to work? 3 How do (household) responsibilities influence travel to work decisions, and for whom are these decisions most impacting? 4 What would be required to reduce overall travel demand and/ or lead to an increase use in lower carbon options? Approach Design • Comparative Case-study • Purposive Sampling • Architects vs Accountants • SMEs Methodology... The role of gender, children and part-time work Research in Transportation Economics, 34, 66-73 SCHWANEN, T., KWAN, M.-P & REN, F 2008 How fixed is fixed? Gendered rigidity of space–time constraints and geographies of everyday activities Geoforum, 39, 2109-2121 SCHWANEN, T & MOKHTARIAN, P L 2005 What affects commute mode choice: neighborhood physical structure or preferences toward neighborhoods? Journal... choice: neighborhood physical structure or preferences toward neighborhoods? Journal of Transport Geography, 13, 83-99 SHOVE, E., PANTZAR, M & WATSON, M 2012 The dynamics of social practice: everyday life and how it changes, Sage ... Introduction • The story so far… • Creativity and Creative Industries • Fixity and Flexibility • Theory and conceptualisation • Questions and hypotheses • Approach The story so far… • Workplace travel planning... Media and Sport (DCMS) (Flew and Cunningham, 2010 p.113) Creative work facilitates autonomy and flexibility, with informality and diversity seemingly regarded as key characteristics of the creative. .. approach… Creativity and Creative Industries ‘The key to economic growth lies not just in the ability to attract the creative class’, but to translate that underlying advantage into creative economic