Marco Pedroni

The lack of a shared definition of «sharing» is a recurring subject in the academic literature. In this article sharing economy is investigated as an umbrella term that refers to social innovation experiences in the context of the economic crisis that began in 2007-2008. In this framework there was a convergence between several processes: technological (the development of web 2.0 and the availability of apps that disintermediate the relations between producers and consumers), socio-cultural (the emergence of new forms of collaboration based on trust) and economic (in the form of new markets for investors and professional opportunities for individuals and families distressed because of the crisis); this convergence created the premises for the development of the sharing economy as an industry and as a cultural phenomenon...

M. PEDRONI, Scientific Research and Market Research. Synergies and Conflicts Between Academic Field and Coolhunting Within the market research it has been developed, in recent years, a set of research techniques inspired by sociology and anthropology, known as coolhunting or trend research. The aim of coolhunting is to intercept and document emerging trends in consumers’ lifestyles, providing the enterprises with reports containing guidelines for planning future production and communication. Starting from an empirical investigation based on 43 in-depth interviews to the professionals engaged in trends prediction, together with a participant observation of the Dutch agency Science of the Time’s activities, the paper tries to identify: (1) the methodological features of coolhunting and its links to the non-standard social research; (2) the relationship between coolhunting and academic field: on the one hand, the benefits that coolhunting obtains from the academic research (especially the symbolic legitimation); on the other, its potential advantages for an employ in the explorative social research. Key words: coolhunting; trend research; non-standard research; social research methodology; market research.

In the last few years there has been considerable attention on creativity seen from the point of view of several disciplines. This paper looks at the historical evolution of concept of creativity, by underlining its collective dimension (psychology and natural sciences especially contributed to this connotation). Until a decade ago, creativity was a marginal subject in sociological reflection, which from the initial stages has tended to focus mainly on the rational dimension of action. ‘Spread creativity’ is an effective key word to read some relevant phenomena of contemporary society: cultural economy, the rise of a new creative class, consumption as creative performance. In this context, I consider the condition of Italy, example of a ‘creativity without system’. Finally, I try to address the initial question: is creativity an expression of an individual genius or a social practice? The first definition is still maintained, but today the social dimension is prevailing. Recent studies actually underline the relevance of contextual components for creativity development. Creativity is an intersubjective value and contemporary societies are moved by a creative ethos. Creativity as a social motor requires further sociological inquiry, preferably carried out with qualitative and non-standard methodology.