Organizing Creativity under Regulatory Uncertainty: Challenges of Intellectual Property

在创意和创新过程中，与知识产权有关的监管不确定性已变得无处不在。传统的经济方法认为，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，通过保护其产出来激励对创造性过程的投资，从而使未来经济开发的回报是可预测的。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影响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)方面出现的这种不确定性，引发了关于能够稳定相互预期的社会实践和制度的问题。然而，到目前为止，很少有人从商业研究或社会学的角度研究监管不确定性对创意过程的组织和产出的影响。这一跨学科研究项目的目的是从过程的角度分析组织行为者如何看待知识产权引起的监管不确定性，他们如何处理项目一级的创造过程以及他们在组织领域一级的互动中的这种不确定性，以及对创造力的总体影响是什么。这些问题将从商业研究和基于实践和制度理论相结合的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，分三个工作包(WP)组织。首先，我们将分析不同的行为者群体(例如，艺术家、研究人员、经理、法律专业人员)如何通过组织领域(WP1)层面的组织和机构实践来感知和解决监管不确定性。在第二步中，我们将通过分析人工制品传记(WP2)来比较在创造性项目的背景下处理不确定性的做法。在这两个工作包的基础上，我们将整合项目和实地动态，目的是确定减少和诱导创新过程中监管不确定性的社会机制，以便为关于知识产权和创造力之间相互关系的一般理论奠定微观基础(WP3)。该研究项目的成果将发表在领先的学术期刊上，并作为一本与国际大学出版社合作的专著。

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.