A Framework for Innovation Assessment in Creative Industries with a Focus on Handicrafts

Creative industries are one of the growing economic sectors, drawn from different aspects, the attention of researchers and policymakers around the world. In this regard, defining and evaluating the innovation in the creative industries is a vital step toward innovation assessment in the industries and is also a challenge for policymakers. In Iran, handicrafts are one of the sectors that are the subject of the most trade exchanges among the creative industries, yet, this field seems to require more innovation for gaining a strong presence in the international competition. This paper aims to shed light on how to attain these two goals. It starts to examine the indicators of innovation in handicrafts, and then, to find out their importance and correlation introduced by exploratory factor analysis. Finally, the paper findings consist of a framework of 17 key indicators under 5 main categories including implementation of innovation, human resource participation, external communications, training, learning, and focusing on organizational processes