Managing Creativity and Innovation in the UK and the USA: The case of practice in the development of electronic games

The UK’s creative industries are regularly referred to as national strengths and exemplars of innovation, but such claims are often qualified by dissatisfaction with its management. This paper explores this paradox through an empirical study of practices and routines in the Electronic Games Development Industry (EGDI) in the UK and USA. Conventional wisdom suggests that UK games developers lag behind their USA counterparts in managing the creative process. The paper identifies and analyses observed differences in practice between British and American developers. Moreover the paper also shows considerable similarities in behaviour and in the adoption of newer practice across the two countries. Implications for the literature on managing creativity are discussed, as are the implications for policy.