Transformations  in
Business & Economics

CREATIVE CITIES AND CLUSTERS
Skaiste Jurene, Virginija Jureniene

ABSTRACT. The article presents and analysis of the concept of creative cities, their types, solutions to increase creative city competitiveness, and creative clusters. In order to identify and analyse the creative cluster of Kaunas city art galleries, a qualitative research was carried out. The results of the research revealed that Kaunas Old Town includes a developing international art gallery service cluster that is oriented towards local market and encompasses 14 different types of organisations. Cooperation among these organisations manifests through spread of information, discounts, various kinds of help, premise leasing and organisation of common projects. The depth of the cluster should be growing in the future due to the possibility to include more companies in the industrial sector. The depth of the cluster and international cooperation reveals the open structure of the cluster, i. e., it crosses over not only Kaunas city (where the cluster is mostly concentrated) but also the borders of the country. The cluster cooperated with companies whose activities are not directly related with art gallery activities .

KEYWORDS:  creative cities, creative industries, creative clusters, creative economy, gallery, Lithuania.

JEL classification:  J01, J30, E25, D33.