CREATIVITY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN INFORMATIONAL METROPOLITAN REGIONS

Due to the growing importance of metropolitan regions for the economy this work aims at analyzing what fosters economic prosperity. We propose the theory that creativity generates new ideas and enhances the entrepreneurship level in the city. In this research the focus lies on metropolitan regions, located around 30 Informational World Cities, which are prototypical cities of the knowledge society. Referring to Friedmann, we extended our focus to regions (surrounding the cities) and went beyond administrative boundaries for the purpose of economic integration and commuting flows to be included. The main task entails finding a possible correlation between creativity, entrepreneurship and economic prosperity. In order to do so, we had to determine adequate indicators describing these aspects. Regarding the economic prosperity we elaborated the GDP per capita. As for entrepreneurship, we focused on the self-employment rate and establishment of new firms. For the purpose of measuring the creativity we had to define it first, namely as constructiveness and innovative problem solving. This means creativity is not only to be found in the field of arts, but also in the fields of science, technology and research. Therefore, we chose the following four indicators to measure the level of creativeness: the Bohemian Index according to Florida which measures the amount of creative people within the city, the creative infrastructure, the scientific (publications) and the technological output (patents). To sum up, our research questions are: Can it be stated that in the informational metropolitan regions the more creative the city is, the more entrepreneurs it has? And, is there any correlation between creativity, economic prosperity, and entrepreneurship?