YOUNG ENTREPRENEURS IN THE MULTIMEDIA INDUSTRY

Abstract

The 90’s saw the phenomenal rise of information technology and modern entrepreneurship. As knowledge becomes the prime driving force of production in a technology-oriented economy. industrial relations and work organization begin to take on a different nature in the new sectors. Modern small firms are typically run by young. well-educated individuals seeking to expand their capabilities. The emergence of this new breed of entrepreneurs represents a shift in societal and industrial needs while governments, in identifying these changes, start modifying their policies to shape the societies of the coming millennium. Multimedia, especially, has become the new buzzword of economic and technological development. In this study of the Singapore multimedia sector, two key issues will be addressed: the rise of multimedia entrepreneurship and the dynamics of the multimedia industry. Specifically, the state's engineering of modern entrepreneurial development is examined alongside the roles and relations of education and technological culture. The general saturation of knowledge in a society is observed to have significant influence on the birth of high-technology sectors and the type of entrepreneurs found in these sectors. Meanwhile, since much of the leading technologies have been channelecl to the development of multimedia, the relations governing its labor processes and industrial structure deserves an in-depth analysis. The dimensions of flexible specialization, fragmentation and de-standardization of time as well as the embeddedness of social networks are explored to shed more light on the complex nature of the industry.