Maintaining the scene: entrepreneurship in Berlin’s artistic sectors

Berlin is a city famous for its artistic culture and uniquely inspired history, building a hotbed of creativity to draw talent from across the world. Our research problem is that, notwithstanding abundant creativity, Berlin’s economy struggles behind other capital cities, and indeed Germany’s national economy. We offer an explanation for this situation in the way entrepreneurship functions in Berlin’s artistic sectors. We apply a mixed embeddedness lens to find the key role of the intermediary driven by cultural agendas and the maintenance of artistic integrity. Thus, economic goals are deprioritised. Our findings have implications for understanding the creative industries in Berlin, and more broadly, they demonstrate the importance of social and spatial context in determining the nature of entrepreneurial activity.