Organizing Creativity under Regulatory Uncertainty: Challenges of Intellectual Property

与知识产权有关的监管不确定性在创造和创新过程中无处不在。传统的经济方法假定，一方面是技术创新领域的专利，另一方面是创造性活动领域的版权，通过保护创造性过程的产出，从而使未来经济开发的回报可以预测，从而为创造性过程的投资提供激励。然而，最近的研究表明，知识产权的扩大、数字技术的兴起和新型组织形式的引入，使参与创造过程的人对知识产权监管的范围和效果产生了越来越大的不确定性。从组织理论的角度来看，例如在累积发明（专利法）或复杂的权利清算（版权）中出现的这种不确定性提出了关于社会实践和制度的问题，这些实践和制度可以稳定相互的期望。然而，到目前为止，监管的不确定性对创造性过程的组织和产出的影响很少从商业研究或社会学的角度进行调查。这个跨学科的研究项目的目的是从过程的角度来分析组织行为者如何看待知识产权所产生的监管不确定性，他们如何处理这种不确定性在创造性的过程中的项目水平，以及在他们的互动水平的组织领域和什么是创造力的整体影响。这些问题将在实践和制度理论相结合的基础上，从商业研究和比较经济社会学的角度来解决。该项目以德国音乐和制药行业的特定子领域为经验重点，分为三个工作包（WP）。首先，我们将分析不同的演员群体（如艺术家，研究人员，管理人员，法律的专业人士）如何感知和解决监管的不确定性，通过组织和机构的做法在组织领域（WP 1）的水平。在第二步中，我们将通过分析人工传记（WP 2）来比较在创意项目背景下处理不确定性的实践。在这两个工作包的基础上，我们将整合项目和领域动态，目的是确定减少和诱导创造过程中的监管不确定性的社会机制，以便为知识产权与创造力之间的相互关系的一般理论奠定微观基础（WP3）。研究项目的结果将在主要的学术期刊上发表，并作为国际大学出版社的专著。

Regulatory uncertainty related to intellectual property rights has become ubiquitous in creative and innovative processes. Conventional economic approaches assume that patents in area of technological innovation on the one hand and copyright in the area of creative activity on the other hand provide incentives for investments in creative processes by protecting their outputs and thereby rendering returns from future economic exploitation predictable. More recent research, however, shows that the expansion of intellectual property rights, the rise of digital technology and the introduction of novel forms of organization generate increasing uncertainty about the scope and effects of intellectual property regulation among those involved in creative processes. From an organizational theory perspective, such uncertainty arising for example in cumulative invention (patent law) or complex rights clearing (copyright) raises question about social practices and institutions which can stabilize mutual expectations. So far, however, the impact of regulatory uncertainty on the organization and outputs of creative processes have been rarely investigated from a business studies or sociological perspective. The aim of this interdisciplinary research project is to analyze from a process perspective how organizational actors perceive regulatory uncertainty arising from intellectual property rights, how they deal with this uncertainty in creative processes at the level of projects as well as in their interactions at the level of the organizational field and what are the overall implications for creativity. These questions will be addressed from the perspective of business studies and comparative economic sociology based on a combination of practice and institutional theories.Focusing empirically on specific subfields of the German music and pharma industries, the project is organized in three work packages (WP). First, we will analyze how different actor groups (e.g. artists, researchers, managers, legal professionals) perceive and address regulatory uncertainty through organizational and institutional practices at the level of organizational fields (WP1). In a second step, we will compare practices of dealing with uncertainty in the context of creative projects through analyzing artefact biographies (WP2). Building on these two work packages, we will integrate project and field dynamics with the aim of identifying social mechanisms for reducing and inducing regulatory uncertainty in creative processes in order to work towards a micro foundation for general theories about the interrelation between intellectual property rights and creativity (WP3). Results of the research project will be published in leading academic journals and as a monography with an international university press.