Introduction: Beyond the ‘Creative Class’ Vision

Abstract

The introduction illustrates the scopes and the aims of the book, contextualising the evolution of knowledge work across the decades in the encounter between neoliberal policies fostering flexibility in employment regimes, and the vision of a ‘creative class’ of knowledge workers that is revealed today as an unfulfilled promise. The section shows how these aspects intersect with the rise of digital media and the new forms and models of collaborative work and organisation, allowing to build the argument of reputation as a shared cultural conception of value and a form of individual social capital, that extends over digital and non-digital networks of knowledge workers in an increasingly freelance-based labour market.