Dan Lomax | Evaluating the role of freelancers and micro-businesses in entrepreneurial creative networks

Supervisors: Professor Emma Wood and Dr Julia Calver

Dan is a Senior Lecturer and part-time PhD student in the UK Centre for Events Management.

My research originates from trying to understand the variety of roles that I fulfilled in my professional life as a creative freelancer in the music economy. Given the different contracts, relationships and friendships I had, I ended up working simultaneously for several competing organizations. This meant that I would be producing content for different venues/brands and independently, as well as competing with long-standing friends, all at the same time. Many freelancers find themselves similarly semi-embedded in larger organizations and it is the nature of these relationships that really interest me and form the basis of my PhD; not quite on the inside, but due to the nature of creative production, certainly more than simple contractors. Drawing on concepts of social networks and social capital, I am exploring the ways different individuals and businesses come together to produce creative and cultural products.