MAKERS AND BREAKERS: SHARED FABRICATION SPACES AND
THE DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD FOR ENTREPRENEURIAL AMBITIONS
MSc Entrepreneurship Thesis
Date: July 14, 2016
Supervisor: Professor Yuval Engel
Name Student number VU-UvA Email Address
Abstract
Entrepreneurs must acquire knowledge and resources to pursue opportunities (Baker & Nelson, 2005; Starr & MacMillan, 1990) and in the case of entrepreneurs creating physical products, they must also attain the means to design, prototype, and manufacture their products for sale (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Shane, 2003). Shared Fabrication Spaces (SFS) are expected to facilitate entry into entrepreneurship by providing cheap resources such as high tech industrial machinery. Specifically, user entrepreneurship is expected to foster in SFS due to the many similarities between makers and users such as the passion to create products in response to personal needs and desires (Aldrich, 2014; Shah & Tripsas, 2007). However, this study employs an Institutional Theory perspective, demonstrating that due to normative and cognitive influences, SFS present a double edged sword for entrepreneurial entry. While financial and capital barriers to entrepreneurship decrease, normative and cognitive pressures simultaneously enact other tangible and intangible barriers. In this way, SFS aspects both enable and inhibit entrepreneurial entry in ways that make the Maker entrepreneurial process significantly different to that of the user entrepreneur.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction
4 Theoretical Overview
6 Makerspaces and Shared Fabrication Spaces: Once Community, Different Shades
6 User Entrepreneurs and User Innovators
10 Entry Barriers to Entrepreneurship: An Institutional Perspective
11 Empirical Setting and Methods
14 Sample Setting
14 Sampling Approach
15 Data Coding and Analysis
17 Findings
18 Economic Forces
19 Access to Impressionable and High Tech Industrial Tools
Physical Personal Space Community Forces
22 Strong Community Homogeneity
Diverse Skill Sets and Industry Backgrounds Formal Education Programs
Informal Community Driven Education Co-Creation and Partnerships
Passion to Create Sharing and Openness
Paradoxical Nature of Economic and Community Forces: The Double Edged Sword for Entrepreneurship 35 Discussion 37 Limitations 40 Conclusion 40 References 41 Appendix 46
INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurs must acquire knowledge and resources to pursue opportunities (Baker & Nelson, 2005; Starr & MacMillan, 1990) and in the case of entrepreneurs creating physical products, they must also attain the means to design, prototype, and manufacture their products for sale (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Shane, 2003). Shared Fabrication Spaces (SFS), such as Makerspaces and Fab Labs (Cavalcanti, 2013), are new forms of collaborative organizations united by the stated mission of the Maker Movement to “democratize” the means of production (Jalopy 2005) by bringing together makers, including tinkerers, hobbyists and professionals, and offering not only cheap access to previously expensive manufacturing technology but also close contact to previously insulated knowledge about how to best use this technology (Aldrich, 2014; Cavalcanti, 2013; Von Hippel, 2005). Hence, it is of no surprise that extant discussions about the entrepreneurial potential of such spaces are exclusively highlighting positive expectations, as some are sensationally hailing the coming of the 3rd industrial revolution (Anderson, 2012), while others more conservatively forecast an increase in the number of “accidental entrepreneurs” (Aldrich, 2014; Van Holm, 2015).
It also appears that such expectations are not without foundation as, for example, these SFS have already hatched a number of innovative products with serious entrepreneurial implications like the Fairphone (Akemu, Whiteman, & Kennedy, 2016), the Ultimaker (Koelman, 2013), and the Bento Lab. In the notable Fairphone case, two novice makers who did not originally have any intentions to produce a viable commercial product and lacked any previous smartphone manufacturing knowledge, teamed up to create a ‘fair’ smartphone that is ‘conflict-mineral free’ and turned it into a huge success (Akemu et al., 2016; Markman, Russo, Lumpkin, Jennings, & Mair, 2016). Indeed, such illustrative examples parallel the process of “user entrepreneurship” posited by Shah and Tripsas (2007) where entrepreneurs are “accidently” borne out of users’ proactive response to personal day-to-day needs by creating solutions driven by passion, followed by a desire to share their solution with others. Yet, despite such anecdotal cases and the logical allure of the idea that SFS will ultimately enable a hoard of unassuming user entrepreneurs to enter entrepreneurship by reducing critical barriers on their path (Aldrich, 2014; Van Holm, 2015), it remains unclear whether, how, and under which conditions do SFS ignite entrepreneurial passions (Aldrich, 2014; Mollick, 2015).
In the current study, this question is investigated through an inductive field research with a sample of 23 individuals who collectively identify themselves as “makers”, whose work is situated at different SFS, and who are either users and/or owners of Makerspaces and Fab Labs. This methodological approach as well as the careful selection of research context and sample was strategic in that the nature of this research is novel and the relationships between makers, SFS, and entrepreneurship are yet to be thoroughly studied. Specifically, this paper focuses on key processes at the intersection of entrepreneurship and the Maker
Movement and provides a unique perspective into the intricate influences of SFS enabling and inhibiting entrepreneurial activity.
The primary and most surprising discovery is that even though SFS often lower barriers to nascent entrepreneurial activity (e.g. cheap access to prototyping facilities, availability of specialized knowledge and learning opportunities, as well as valuable contact with early adopters), they also erect other barriers due to normative and cognitive institutional forces (e.g., requiring conformity to community values, necessitating the sharing of ideas, information, and skills, and enforcing a community ethos resisting commercialization and profit making). Importantly, these findings hold true for different individuals in the sample and across different forms of SFS. Hence, while this study points to some important organizational-level distinctions between Fab Labs and the more commercial variety of Makerspaces, because they all share allegiance to the Maker Movement, they all embrace an ideology championing openness and resource sharing, which, at least with regard to entrepreneurial activity, presents itself as a double edged sword. In particular, Fab Labs, which offer the seemingly lowest threshold in accessing vital resources, do not necessarily stimulate entry to entrepreneurship as they restrict makers’ time and space for using these resources and impose community norms that advocates collective action but indirectly deters commercialization. As such, entrepreneurial aspirations that are ignited by activities within Fab Labs are a product of maker resilience from powerful community values. Aversion to immense profits and corporate production methods were found even in commercial Makerspaces where any community related restrictions on entrepreneurial activity are relatively weaker and the payment of a membership fee does buy a certain level of freedom from ideology, the entrepreneurs who manage to thrive are the ones who already entered the space with a clear entrepreneurial goal. In other words, any entrepreneurial resources provided within SFS are not necessarily inspiring new entrants to entrepreneurship, and may even be detrimental for entrepreneurship.
This study offers three main contributions to the literature about user entrepreneurship and collective invention. First, invisible entry barriers to entrepreneurship borne of normative and cognitive institutional influences are shown to be of extreme importance as a force that inconspicuously dissuades paths to entrepreneurship. Second, the differences between distinct varieties of SFS studied (Fab Labs and Makerspaces) are scrutinized and their relevance to entrepreneurship is examined. This study demonstrates that while commercial Makerspaces enact weaker yet more explicit barriers to user entrepreneurship by introducing membership fees and selective admittance procedures, Fab Labs’ enact a stronger implicit ideological resistance to entrepreneurship, with potentially fatal effects for user entrepreneurs. In addition, the user entrepreneurship model provided by Shah and Tripsas (2007) is found to be insufficient in studying entrepreneurial processes of makers. Finally, this research directly ties in with the nascent stream of research on SFS. While there have been some who highlighted the potential implications of these spaces
for entrepreneurship (Akemu et al., 2016; Aldrich, 2014; Allen, 2016; Backhaus, 2015; Diez, 2012; Moilanen, 2012; Van Holm, 2015), this study demonstrates that this relationship is more nuanced and must be further studied.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. First this study provides an overview of the reality of makers and SFS, then discussing literature about user innovation and user entrepreneurship to help inform this investigation of entrepreneurial activity in SFS. Next, barriers to entrepreneurial entry are implored using an institutional theory perspective. Next, the methodological approach is introduced detailing the data collection process. Finally, the results of this study are presented and a discussion of the findings as well as their place in extant literature is offered along with propositions for future research.
THEORETICAL OVERVIEW
This is an inductive study imploring if and how entrepreneurial pursuits are ignited in SFS where entrepreneurship is understood as a commercialization path for innovators and inventors (Shane & Venkataraman, 2000). Meanwhile the user entrepreneurship model by Shah and Tripsas (2007) demonstrated in Figure 2 is relevant due to the many similarities between makers and user and to literature assuming the creation of accidental entrepreneurs in SFS. Utilizing an iterative process that goes between data and the relevant literature to informs analysis and interpretation. A brief theoretical overview of the literature that consulted in the course of the study is presented here first (Pratt, 2008; Suddaby, 2006). Makers and Shared Fabrication Spaces: One community, Different Shades
SFS are infrastructures used as tools for different maker community purposes. While each one hopes to harbor talented makers and provide democratized access to production means (especially Fab Labs), each SFS is distinct as each respective community aims to accomplish different goals. The studied SFS are Fab Labs and Makerspaces where the latter is a more commercial shade of Fab Labs.
SFS work to eradicate tangible and economic barriers to digital product manufacturing. Accredited largely to the power of the Web, the Maker Movement has attracted individuals with a passion for invention to collect in community workshops sharing technologically advanced tools often too expensive for just any one person to purchase (Anderson, 2012; Moilanen, 2012; Van Holm, 2015). Indeed, as fabrication
Table 1. Fab Labs versus Makerspaces.
becomes more and more digitalized, production processes no longer depend on distant factories and specific industrial expertise. Inventors no longer need firm factories. Shared online files of product designs can be downloaded from websites like thingiverse.com to recreate and modify products for personal and
commercial use with increasingly accessible and appropriate machinery. Makerspaces and Fab Labs and the energetic communities they house seem to have converged in their mission to support the design, prototyping, and manufacturing of user made products, igniting entrepreneurial ambitions and lowering the barriers to entrepreneurial of lack of resources, capital, and know how (Audretsch, 2007). By reducing the costs of production through shared machinery and providing access to communities that are passionate for innovative making and are rich in knowledge and expertise, the Maker Movement is expected to have produced a novel route to entrepreneurship (Aldrich, 2014; Mollick, 2015; Von Hippel, 2005).
Makers not only recreate products from scratch, or twist the product design to make a project distinctly their own, but also create novel projects from conceptualization to execution with the support of the Maker community, which can lead to cooperation and partnerships. The Maker’s mission is to innovate products and create something new with novel and expert processes and tools so that much of the Maker integrity is sourced from their ability to do so and not copy others unless for educational purposes (Anderson, 2012). Makers are now able to not only invent revolutionary and vital products relevant for personal consumption, but also for the entire world around them by freely sharing their ideas and recipes of invention online and offline. For example, the Smart Citizen Kit was designed utilizing open source methodology in the Netherlands at Fab Lab de Waag and provides environmental information such as air pollution to facilitate inter-city comparison. Everything needed to recreate the product was published online with the specific goal to allow replication and improvement anywhere else in the world.1
Making is not a meaningless hobby, but an empowered act to shift away from buying from traditional corporations towards proactive independent creation. No longer does the mass produced product suffice, but Making goes beyond customization and locally produced goods. Making entails individual level creation with complete awareness of how a good is created and what it takes to bring a digital file to life without depending on closed processes employed by large corporates (Aldrich, 2014). In extension, maker values promote production systems that oppose capitalistic processes. Making is deemed an activity that saves makers from having to buy from traditional corporations, similar to emancipatory aspects of entrepreneurship (Rindova, Barry, & Ketchen, 2009). Makers not only save themselves, but others, pursuing international development by sharing resources and information freely and openly, and as such, ventures flowing from SFS tend to hold social entrepreneurship characteristics such as Fairphone’s hope to create a better world (Akemu et al., 2016; Mair & Marti, 2006; Mair, Robinson, & Hockerts, 2006).
Core to the maker movement are the elements of open sharing and playfulness. The preeminent statement “if you can’t open it, you don’t own it” demonstrates the maker’s reverence for ownership, defining ownership as a state that can be achieved only when a person “opens up” the product and
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1 The published manual can be found here.completely knows the ins and outs of the creation (Anderson, 2012; Jalopy, 2005) so that black box production processes are uncovered and provided democratically to the masses. This demands dedication and curiosity. But, it is in the practice of sharing knowledge through openness that makers unite. Playfulness incites an enjoyment from “opening up” the production process to create repurposed and novel creations. The principle of playing with technology demystifies technological creation and makes production an enjoyable activity rather than a necessity or task. In sum, making is a form of independence and a passion, which can be comparable to the non-pecuniary benefits of freedom and of creating a business for personal satisfaction (Benz, 2009). As such, all SFS in their many varieties act to support makers in this aim by lowering economic barriers to making.
It is important to understand is that Makerspaces and Fab Labs attract individuals who often visit more than one shared fabrication space, so they hop from one to another to try different approaches. But, that also means that they have seen other spaces such as Hackerspaces or TechShops. As such, values from other SFS can shift into Makerspaces and Fab Labs. Figure 1 demonstrates how SFS differ.
User Entrepreneurs and User Innovators
Among entrepreneurs, user entrepreneurs make products out of passion for personal use and consequently create not only new ventures but also brand new markets and industries (Hienerth, 2006). According to the significant contribution by Shah and Tripsas (2007), user entrepreneurship is “the commercialization of a new product and/or service by an individual or group of individuals who are also users of that product and/or service” and is a spontaneous process seriously entangled in the feedback effects user communities.
Table 2. Similarities and Differences between Users and Makers.
The user collectives are found to harbor innovations and create information synergies that contribute to the innovations created by one or many users (Von Hippel, 2005; Von Hippel, Ogawa, & De Jong, 2011). Most significantly, these effects from the collectives occurring before venture creation manifest in forms of voluntary participation of fellow users expressing interest, offering design feedback, and ultimately generating heightened novelty through collective creativity (Chesbrough, 2006; Chesbrough & Appleyard, 2007; Dahlin, Taylor, & Fichman, 2004). Thus, collective forms of invention occur within user clusters and the ventures derived from these communities depend on the community itself prior to new venture creation ambitions (Cowan & Jonard, 2000; Franke & Shah, 2003; Franke, Von Hippel, & Schreier, 2006; Von Hippel, 2005). In this way, user communities are sources of incentives pushing towards entrepreneurship. Mollick (2016)’s recent study on Open Source Software (OSS) user innovators found that community affiliations do indeed affect the likeliness of entrepreneurship, but only at the individual level. Commercialization is due to the self-identity of users rather than anti-commercial motivations of OSS communities. Mollick (2016) contrasts the expectations of this study because access to resources entail greater communication with community members, thereby increasing the likeliness of makers to experience community conformity processes. As makers also create out of passion and personal necessity within maker communities located in SFS, this study expects that user entrepreneurship is facilitated by the lowered economic barriers and community strength in SFS, spurring makers to become user entrepreneurs.
Figure 2. Model of the end-user entrepreneurial process by Shah and Tripsas (2007).
Bogers, Afuah, and Bastian (2010) observe that user innovators hold “sticky” knowledge, which is information difficult to transfer, relying steadily on needs of their immediate environments (Lüthje, Herstatt, & Von Hippel, 2005). Users expect to benefit significantly from implementing the innovation while, commercial value is an afterthought, but can be exploited by those within the local setting that understand both the problem and solution (Dahlin et al., 2004; Hippel & Krogh, 2003). Therefore, the user entrepreneur is time and space specific. If user entrepreneurs do exist within SFS, they would depend on the spaces themselves as well as on other makers.
While user entrepreneurs hold sticky information, both users and makers ‘freely reveal’ innovations, meaning that property rights are given up and innovations are essentially unprotected, allowing other users in their communities to profit from the innovation and implement them into their own use or project (Von Hippel, 2005; Von Hippel et al., 2011). How far freely-revealed information travels depends on how far-reaching is the community, which is facilitated by online documentation. Overall, knowledge sharing activities are spurred by selfish and unselfish desires such as notions of fairness and mutual sharing (Gächter, von Krogh, & Haefliger, 2010; Hippel & Krogh, 2003) as well as reputational desires and community expectations make sharing environments, creating different ideological and strategic expected pay offs (Stam, 2009; Von Hippel, 2005; Wasko & Faraj, 2005). Users’ freely-revealing practices are similar to the sharing norms of makers, further establishing the assumption that SFS create heightened facility towards entrepreneurship by harboring and igniting user entrepreneurship.
Entry Barriers to Entrepreneurship: An Institutional Theory Perspective
Paths to entrepreneurship are aggravated by extensively researched entry barriers that often forcefully affect not only existing entrepreneurs, but also potentially entrepreneurial individuals without their awareness (Klapper, Laeven, & Rajan, 2004). Most obvious entrepreneurial barriers can include barriers to gaining necessary resources such as financial investment and capital (Cassar, 2006; Cetorelli & Strahan, 2006;
User Entrepreneurship 129
Copyright © 2007 Strategic Management Society Strat. Entrepreneurship J., 1: 123–140 (2007)
DOI: 10.1002/sej of competitive advantage. Bhidé (2000) labels this
process ‘opportunistic adaptation.’ Although these processes also occur in user-founded fi rms, the gathering of feedback occurs earlier, before the user even contemplates a commercial venture, as described below.
The user entrepreneurship process
Figure 2 illustrates our process model of user entre-preneurship. Actions taken by users are represented by rectangles, and input to those actions is repre-sented by ovals. The user entrepreneurship process is distinct from the classic entrepreneurship process (Figure 1) in two primary ways. First, for a user the entrepreneurial process is typically emergent, meaning that the user entrepreneur takes a number of steps towards starting a fi rm, such as develop-ing a product for personal use, without any formal acknowledgment or evaluation of a commercial opportunity. In contrast, only after a potential oppor-tunity has been identifi ed would a typical
entrepre-neur take action such as developing prototypes. Second, when users are embedded in user commu-nities, the community can play a signifi cant role in the development and diffusion of the innovation. While existing research emphasizes feedback and adaptation, it is focused on change that occurs after fi rm formation. User entrepreneurs obtain feedback and adapt prior to fi rm formation.
The user’s emergent path to entrepreneurship Many of the user entrepreneurs in our juvenile prod-ucts sample followed a similar series of steps as outlined in Figure 2. First, before the concept of an entrepreneurial venture even existed, a user experi-enced a problem or need. After searching the market for available solutions, the user determined that the need could not be met by products or services avail-able in the market. For instance, the founder of The Baby Bath Gate commented ‘When my daughter chipped her tooth on the tub faucet I felt terrible. I looked for a functional solution, but none was available. What I needed was a barrier.’ Unable to
Information Asymmetry •Prior employment •University-based technology Opportunity identification
Entry into the commercial marketplace Firm is formed (or not) Unique framing •Prior employment •University-based technology Market feedback leads to adaptation Entrepreneur experiments and creates solution to perceived needs
Figure 1. Classic model of the entrepreneurial process
User experiments and creates a novel solution to satisfy their own needs Commu •User s innova within •Collect nity Interaction hares tion freely a community ive creativity Opportunity Identification •User recognizes a potential opportunity User forms a firm (or not)
Entry into the commercial marketplace User’s unmet needs Feedback leads to improvement Public •User e solutio and att intere Interaction mploys n in public racts st Information Asymmetry •Need-related knowledge •System of use perspective •Recognition of demand Unique framing •Diversity of user backgrounds Feedback leads to improvement Market feedback leads to adaptation
Sørensen, 2007). Regulative institutional barriers to entrepreneurial entry includes immediately visible public policy incentivizing and deterring entrepreneurs, such as tax regulation and public new venture grants (Dennis Jr, 2011). Barriers to entrepreneurship also include attitudes towards entrepreneurship ingrained in social attitudes that stop entrepreneurial inclinations (Bruton, Ahlstrom, & Obloj, 2008). In this way, entrepreneurial opportunities may seem less attractive and are less likely to be noticed by makers, even in a context where other impediments to entry are lifted (e.g., when financial resources, relevant knowledge, and valuable network ties are readily available).
As posited by Shinnar, Giacomin, and Janssen (2012) cultural forces play a large part in who enters entrepreneurship and how. Shapero and Sokol (1982) show that value systems are deeply affected by social and cultural factors carrying weight on the decision to attempt entrepreneurship. An individual’s value system will be impacted by the pervading community social system and is therefore vulnerable to that social system’s opinion on entrepreneurship (Shapero & Sokol, 1982). Further, decision-making activities weighing options including entrepreneurship are affected not only by the formal financial regulations, but also by unsaid subtle attitudes towards different options (Mair et al., 2006). Therefore, a more holistic view on entrepreneurial entry barriers is needed in analyzing both visible and tangible and invisible and intangible barriers to entrepreneurial entry. Multidisciplinary approaches encompassing sociology, economics, and psychology have been employed by researchers to bring a more comprehensive understanding of the factors affecting entry to entrepreneurship (Acs & Audretsch, 2003; Berglund & Johansson, 2007; Kouriloff, 2000; Licht & Siegel, 2006; Steyaert & Katz, 2004).
Institutional theory lends itself to understanding of the regulatory, social and cultural influences promoting survival and legitimacy of micro and macro organizational forms such as societies and communities through the regulative, normative and cognitive pillars that’s overview visible and invisible forces on entrepreneurship (Scott, 2013). While normative forces refer to standards of behavior and conventions, cognitive forces instead derive from taken for granted elements (Bruton, Ahlstrom, & Li, 2010). These forces not only determine who enters entrepreneurship and how but the subsequent paths of those entrepreneurial initiatives (Beckert, 1999). Paths towards entrepreneurship are created by both the individuals within organizational forms and the institutional pillars (Bruton et al., 2010; Garud, Gehman, & Giuliani, 2014). Due to the informal nature of SFS holding relatively little amounts of regulation, meaning that the regulative pillar will not be looked at.
Within organizational forms, individuals seek legitimacy to gain the right to belong to the organizational form as well as gain support from external others. Industries that are in formative states and still incomplete are similar to amorphous communities of practice, which are organizational forms where survival depends on persistence and intensity of interactions between members on a certain concern or topic and their hope to deepen their understanding of these relating issues (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Baglieri &
Lorenzoni, 2014; Fiol & Romanelli, 2012). Here, an entrepreneur’s legitimacy is especially critical and demands even greater investments to satisfy needs including the establishment of both cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994). In the former, the entrepreneur establishes legitimacy as a new venture, while in the latter, the new form abides by and connects to pre-existing understandings and standards. In addition, individuals within new organisational forms can have serious impacts in establishing sociopolitical legitimacy in society (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994; Suchman, 1995). Battilana, Leca, and Boxenbaum (2009) define institutional entrepreneurs as those individuals within organisations that initiate and actively participate in activities that enforce change. Thereby, institutional entrepreneurs can legitimate themselves and new forming organisations and industries as long as external and internal audiences are recruited to acknowledge the organisational identity (Fiol & Romanelli, 2012; Hannan, Pólos, & Carroll, 2007). This pool of literature demonstrates that makers must achieve legitimacy not only in the eyes of other makers, but also in the eyes of society outside the maker community, especially when legitimating user-based ventures facing institutional forces.
Institutional forces derived from the theoretical pillars are enablers and inhibitors of activities within organisational forms that determine entry barriers to entrepreneurship that facilitate and deter entrepreneurial ambitions and activities (Desa, 2012; Phillips & Tracey, 2007). In the path toward gaining necessary resources for new ventures, entrepreneurs must “perform a delicate balancing act across political, economic, and regulatory domains”, a feat that is particular in emerging markets, which are common occurrences for user entrepreneurs, and new organisational forms, like Fab Labs and Makerspaces (Shah & Tripsas, 2007; Tracey & Phillips, 2011). Unique strategies to overcome institutional barriers are utilised by institutional entrepreneurs(Battilana et al., 2009). The ways in which entrepreneurs recognize opportunities, seek legitimacy, and develop capabilities to create solutions for problems at hand, which is simultaneously affected by institutional forces (Phillips & Tracey, 2007).
On this theoretical basis, the current study aims to investigate whether or not SFS ignite entrepreneurial pursuits, and if so, how do makers become user entrepreneurs and commercialize their innovations. Herein, this research stream is utilized to consider institutional factors enacting visible and invisible barriers to entrepreneurial entry in the specific context of SFS, with special consideration for the normative and cognitive institutional pillars posited by Scott (2013). Since SFS promulgate democratic and equitable access to production means, financial barriers are expected to lower because it is now much cheaper to gain knowledge on how to utilize appropriate machinery, create quality prototypes, and maintain small, but respectful and profitable production levels. What remains obscure are the invisible barriers to user entrepreneurship existing in SFS spaces, which can be analyzed through the theoretical lens of normative and cognitive institutional pillars. These are vital to uncover since societal barriers can extinguish entrepreneurial sparks before ideas even have the chance to catch fire.
EMPIRICAL SETTING AND METHODS
The goals of this research study are to discover if and in what ways user entrepreneurship is generated within SFS and their maker communities. Considering that Makerspaces and Fab Labs are seriously lacking in research attention, this study will follow Edmondson and McManus (2007) contribution of ‘methodological fit’ and utilize an exploratory, qualitative research design that is recommended for phenomena largely untouched by theoretical academic research (Strauss & Corbin, 1998; Yin, 2003). Specifically, this inductive research pursues systematic comparison and contrasting of multiple cases in order to assure higher confidence in patterns that emerge from the data (Eisenhardt, 1989).
Sample Setting
Following that this research is based on the users and members of SFS that utilize and champion open sharing practices, this study locates makers frequenting either or both Makerspaces and Fab Labs. These individuals are selected on the basis of their use of these spaces, oftentimes utilizing both Makerspaces and Fab Labs, developing one or more projects within these communities. Therefore, this sample should be considered theoretical (Patton, 1990). The communities studied were found to be typically novel and consistently changing. All but one space is older than four years of age while users and members often “grow out” of a space in order to continue increasing production levels or to try a new space for personal reasons. As such, these communities are early stage amorphous communities of practice (Fiol & Romanelli, 2012). These often start as open and loosely held gatherings that act as sides to members’ daily activities.
In order to discover if maker ideas originated from the interactions within the SFS community or from the outside, the individuals in this sample were asked about all projects made within their chosen space. Therefore, this study looks at both commercialized and non-commercialized products that were thought of inside and out of maker communities instead of assuming that projects within Makerspaces and Fab Labs are commercialized and borne from community interactions. Thereby, bias is decreased, and a different approach is used compared to previous inquiries into the link between entrepreneurship and SFS where preselected interviewees were screened based on their existing status as user entrepreneurs (e.g., Mortara and Parisot, 2016). Instead, the sample setting of this study zooms in on the critical moments prior to or in the process of starting a venture and sees how entrepreneurship, and user entrepreneurship specifically, is inspired. This decision was made in the aim of obtaining rich, detailed and thick data that sheds light on the experience and the context of creating and making products (Geertz, 1973). Furthermore, the methodology employed is coherent with the aim of understanding if, and in what ways projects made in SFS lead to commercialization and user entrepreneurship. This is in line with the Shah and Tripsas (2007) model that delineates the impetus towards user entrepreneurship largely as a result of feedback from other
like-minded users. For this precise reason, it is important to see if the communities within SFS enable or inhibit entrepreneurial ambitions of intending or potential entrepreneurs (Kouriloff, 2000).
Table 3. Sample Descriptors.
Sampling Approach
This study’s interest was to first identify SFS makers in order to detect the activities performed in their chosen spaces and then to uncover the link between those activities to product creation and, in some cases, to new user-based venture formation. Therefore, the first step of data collection was to enter a variety of SFS and determine through field work visits followed by extensive notes on which spaces seemed most similar and most appropriate for new product creation and new venture formation. This stage also included
data generation from online sources about the space, such as websites, online video tutorials or presentations provided and created by SFS maker communities, and recruitment processes distinguished by online promotional material and sign up pages. In addition, social events were attended in order to both meet the makers and those in charge of the spaces as well as observe important interactions between makers and managers in relation to their projects.
After the first visits, there were two rounds of semi-structured interviews. The first round of interviews was generally shorter in time (15 to 30 minutes) and included spontaneous interviews with individuals ‘on the spot’. Meanwhile, following snowball sampling methods (staying within the bounds of the theoretical sampling guidelines discussed above), the second round of interviews was scheduled and included more extensive questioning (30 to 90 minutes). The sample includes makers, who can be understood as the consumers of the shared fabrication space, as well as managers or founder that created or ran the SFS, who can be understood as the service and product providers. All interviewees were frequenters of the SFS in that they would be physically in the space working and collaborating at least once or twice a week. In addition, one interviewee, an ‘expert’ highly recommended by three other makers, was interviewed in order to gain insight from his wide experience with Makerspaces and Fab Labs across Western Europe.
Not all spaces in the region were visited as one had closed down six months prior (iFabrica), and two others were not visited for other specific time and mobility constraint reasons (Protospace Utrecht and Makerversity London). Nevertheless, each space was described by at least two interviewees who frequented them. Many managers and owners of these spaces are teachers and facilitators of project creation either directly by providing fellowships for individuals to work on projects and teach makers how to use the machines, or indirectly by organizing informal social gatherings where partnerships could form and advice could be given.
Interestingly, makers often used at least two of the SFS either at the same time or over time. This meant that this research could not categorize makers into designated SFS, but rather, SFS had to be categorized according to makers. Interview protocols can be found in the Appendix 1 and 2. In total, twelve visits at seven locations and 23 transcribed interviews were realized. The SFS include Fab Lab De Waag, Protospace Fab Lab Utrecht, ZB45 Fab Lab Amsterdam, iFabrica, Makerversity Amsterdam, Makerversity London, and RDM Makerspace.
All interviewees were asked open ended questions followed by specific questions enhancing the thorough exploration of the individual’s answers and the precise understanding of their explanations. The increase in variation for the data collected in interviews was gained by asking interviewees, “have you ever seen this happen (differently) for others?” depending on the answers. This led to data that included variety in attitudes towards community values and norms as well as variety and thorough understandings makers’ motivations to join SFS communities. Whenever possible, the materials of SFS that are listed publicly
online, which related to the activities and missions of the shared fabrication labs, were analyzed. When possible, contracts that preceded a maker’s membership or integration at a SFS were analyzed in order to understand terms and conditions of the relationships between and goals of the interviewees, as well as to understand the circumstances they faced by entering SFS.
The issues addressed in the interviews expanded to include all of the following: (1) experience and relationship with respective SFS as well as selection or recruitment processes; (2) decision-making motivations for joining a space and staying (or not), as well as the ultimate mission of each Makerspace and Fab Lab; (3) selection procedures and educational efforts; (4) understandings community practices and values around key themes such as openness, sharing of information, and collaboration; (5) the accrued benefits and associated costs for joining Makerspaces and Fab Labs; and (6) the experience of and attitude towards entrepreneurship and project commercialization for profit. The last theme was included due to interesting and unexpected comments about profit-seeking ambitions that were brought up indirectly and serendipitously. Thereafter, these attitudes towards commercialization were given more attention in following interviews. To encourage disclosure and allow a free flow of information, candidates were guaranteed anonymity and were given a very broad understanding of the research topic.
Data Coding and Analysis
A review of prior research on user entrepreneurship demonstrated that users collectively create products that can have powerful commercial consequences, as shown by users’ predominant role in corporate R&D and in new venture creation (Baldwin, Hienerth, & Von Hippel, 2006). These users tied to amorphous communities share not only passion for a similar topic, but also share values and identities that are socially co-created (Fiol & Romanelli, 2012; Lichtenthaler, 2011). Users work amongst one another, giving each other feedback and consistently improving products that could lead to entrepreneurial paths. Thus, the objective of this analysis is to acquire a deeper understanding of whether or not and how Makerspaces and Fab Labs play a part in enabling and inhibiting user entrepreneurship.
In order to achieve the research goals, each interview was reviewed while employing open coding (Creswell, Hanson, Plano, & Morales, 2007). The open coding led to a second layer of coding whereby similar comments and themes identified in interviews were categorized together. Progressed codes were obtained in this way as well as the selection of key quotations demonstrating attitudes towards sharing practices, and commercialization and venture creation. Second order codes emerged from this data analysis identified related themes across interviews. Data and word frequencies were then mapped, leading to visualization tools that allowed a deeper and more distinguished understanding of the researched phenomena. As each interview was reviewed, the different interviews and data sources were also compared to make sure that found patterns were not just hunches (Yin, 2003).
Figure 3: Data Analysis.
FINDINGS
The primary discovery of this current study is that SFS present a double edged sword for actual and would-be entrepreneurs in their ability to enable and inhibit entry to entrepreneurship, thereby leading to user entrepreneurship. On one side, Makerspaces and Fab Labs lower barriers to entrepreneurial entry by providing access to cheap tools for fabrication, specialized knowledge and opportunities to learn, as well as valuable contact with potential early adopters. However, on the other side, these spaces also enforce a community ethos upholding values of sharing and openness, which has the power to stifle entrepreneurial aspirations. The explicit and implicit demands from maker communities found in the SFS of this study can deter entrepreneurship in unexpected and paradoxical ways due to normative and cognitive institutional forces. SFS are found to be helpful and attractive to makers who already hope to become entrepreneurs or are ideologically open to commercializing projects before joining because of the multiple benefits provided
through the physical resources and the community itself. However, these spaces do not necessarily motivate entrepreneurship, let alone user entrepreneurship, as the community ethos of SFS has the power to indirectly negate entrepreneurial ambitions altogether.
This section presents the predominant themes demonstrated in Figure 3 that contain normative and cognitive institutional elements that both enable and inhibit entrepreneurial ambitions, which can be divvied into Community and Economic Forces. These findings demonstrate how makers must balance both enabling and inhibiting aspects of SFS and their maker communities in pursuing entrepreneurship and uncovering how SFS offer a double-edged sword for entrepreneurship. The relationship between SFS and entrepreneurship is much more nuanced than expected and depends on the type of SFS frequented. Finally, the ways in which SFS both enable and inhibit entry into entrepreneurship is discussed, to show that user entrepreneurship does not provide an adequate model for maker entrepreneurial processes because of the double-edged sword SFS create for entrepreneurial ambitions.
Economic and Community Forces
Makerspaces and Fab Labs contain Community and Economic forces that comprise of influences from normative and cognitive pillars and affect the relationship between makers and entrepreneurship. These forces create a double edged sword for makers enabling and inhibiting entrepreneurial ambitions. The following will detail these forces manifest in different themes, delineate how each help and hinder entrepreneurship, and how these forces differ in Fab Labs and their commercial Makerspaces counterparts. Economic Forces
Access to Impressionable and High Tech Industrial Tools
The most instant and general motivation to joining an SFS is access to impressionable and high tech equipment such as CNC machines, laser cutters, 3D printers and other production tools. Across Fab Labs and Makerspaces, makers were succinctly attracted to being able to experiment and create with the professional equipment of the SFS. Many expressed that projects could only succeed with the use of these machines and initially joined or switched to other SFS due to the free or affordable equipment available in each SFS, accessed through payments of time and/or money. The industrial quality equipment cannot easily be financially maintained nor physically hosted by just one person. As one maker joked, “where do you put a laser cutter? Mom, can I use the kitchen? No! You need this [Fab Lab]” (R21).
In some spaces, makers are rigorously encouraged to test the limits of the machines and in all spaces, most of the only formal rules relate to the safe use of machines. These machines thus present a primal common priority for all. The whole community surrounds around the technological equipment and physical work spaces, placing importance on both caring and experimenting with machines. Much of the
maker integrity and pride is derived from the ability to innovate and create utilizing these high tech machines, providing some form of legitimacy to those inside and out of the maker community. As one maker describes, “I love showing [clients and investors] the place. I didn’t want to show them my dad’s backyard, you know what I mean? But they can come here because it looks professional […] you see all these heavy duty machines and you seem really professional for being here.” (R13)
These tools are the major benefit of SFS, enabling entrepreneurship because they entail large cost reductions in bringing product ideas to life. The machinery available in SFS can allow makers to create impressionable prototypes and allow for low levels of production for affordable sums, which greatly alleviates financial and capital requirements to entrepreneurial entry. As discussed in the theoretical overview, such fiscal barriers to enter entrepreneurship are often the most visible and glaring when individuals think of starting new ventures. In addition, the ability to use professional equipment provides legitimacy for the maker to the outside world when selling products and services because they are able to present themselves as knowledgeable and serious product creators, rather than individuals with fantastical ideas.
However, these benefits come with costs in both Fab Labs and Makerspaces, even though all SFS largely democratize the means of production and technology. Commercial Makerspaces request membership fees for maintenance and rent, which were costs members reported to be very willing to pay as they believe the benefits are well worth the fee. Meanwhile, Fab Labs are mostly open to those who work for the organization existing alongside the Fab Lab or those who pay for time slots. On Fab Lab open days, access to machinery is at least partly free, but this option is possible only if a person documents their design, making it open source and posting it on the Fab Lab’s website along with detailed instructions. If documentation is not provided, Fab Lab makers then need to pay at least part of the cost to use the machines. For example, users receive a 50% discount on the cost of using machines on open days if they document their design. If not, they must pay a full open day fee. Even when open days are completely free, Fab Lab makers must wait in line often all day in order to gain free access to the machine, thereby paying for machine access with knowledge and time. This transaction is explained by one product creator, “in many Fab Labs, there’s kind of this regulation to share. If you come and use the machines for free, you have an obligation to share your files and your process, that anybody can make it. That’s the goal.” (R14) Further, although there is no explicit rule to share, normative institutional influences lead makers to agree to knowledge transactions when accessing SFS resources.
In addition, even if machines are technically ‘free’, there are costs to waiting in line equal to a whole day of not being productive, because there is very little space to do or create during waiting times in Fab Labs since there are no designated personal spaces. Therefore, SFS are largely a luxurious opportunity
for design-educated individuals who have the time and privilege to create, inhibiting entrepreneurial makers who do not have machinery skill or time to wait for machines.
Physical Personal Space
Physical Personal space proved to be a large benefit for makers in the space. These included aspects of an SFS such as physical infrastructure appropriate for making, personal space, and location. In SFS, proximity and reputable venue location played into the reasoning for choosing a certain SFS. Many makers chose one SFS over another for simple reasons of being close to home while others reported that the value associations to the physical location created worthy financial and non-financial benefits. For example, one member described, “the venue is quite important to get clients here easily.” (R3) Others explained that location reputations transferred over to their personal reputation, so that they were able to demonstrate legitimacy in new relationships outside the Makerspace, “being able to use [the name and place] in describing what I do and [to be able to] say ‘Oh I have a desk space at [a reputable location]’, people respond ‘Oh Ok, you’re serious’ rather than [when I would say], I work from home or I have a desk somewhere else.” (R5)
Location allowed Makerspaces and Fab Labs to pursue entrepreneurial objectives. Location was important to space owners and facilitators who used location to support the selection process as it would filter out undesirable members. For instance, in one Makerspace, the geographical location of the space was outside the city’s center, meaning that the location “works as a filter so that only skilled and serious makers [join].” (R11) Further, those makers willing to travel the distance were more likely to be dedicated to entrepreneurial projects, and, in this way, cognitive forces alive in this Makerspace valued dedicated entrepreneurial ambitions, enabling entry to entrepreneurship. Other Makerspaces looking for entrepreneurial makers offered location benefits in that the Makerspace was easy to access and recognizable for clients and investors.
On the other hand, Fab Labs offer similar location benefits by being central and easy to access for makers, but cannot offer designated personal space especially during open days due to high demands and limited space and time. Makers visiting Fab Labs thus worked on small execution parts of projects and kept most of their belongings at home. In this way, Fab Labs inhibited entrepreneurial paths because they cannot offer long term project support. Instead, Fab Labs are spaces particularly helpful for experimentation and short term projects where execution can be done in a few hours, which does not include the time spent when complications arise. One maker had come into a Fab Lab only to realize that the wood laser cutter could not successfully work with her chosen wood. As a result, because Fab Labs do not offer memberships, but instead require booking reservations several weeks in advance, she had to either wait or find another SFS to execute her project. Time and space constraints of Fab Labs also translated into the difficulty of creating anything that might be applicable beyond personal consumption. Due to the fact the production levels in
these spaces is minimal because of time slots or lack of storage and workspace, executing an innovation with the accessed machines generally could not lead to entrepreneurship because there is not enough time or place to interact with others and gain feedback that may demonstrate demand from others or encouragements to pursue the project commercially. The norms determining how space is shared and provided lead to inhibiting forces on entrepreneurial inspirations because makers do not have the time and space to gain feedback encouraging entrepreneurship from maker communities the way user entrepreneurs do from user communities.
Community Forces
Community forces found in the SFS make up the intangible elements that had no direct or immediately visible financial contribution to makers’ projects and their potential commercialization. Instead, these demonstrate the true power of SFS in their ability to foster talented makers, develop community member skills, and provide opportunities. The institutional context of the SFS thereby determines how makers will identify commercial opportunities and pursue entrepreneurial objectives.
Strong Community Homogeneity
The established understandings of both user entrepreneurs and makers entail a surrounding of like-minded individuals that amount to user and maker communities (Lüthje et al., 2005; Shah & Tripsas, 2007; Von Hippel, 2001). Fab Labs and Makerspaces provide open workshop spaces and shared technical equipment, and in this agreement, makers must work transparently and share resources in exchange for cheap access to resources, because normative and cognitive institutional forces of the strong community posit that working together openly and sharing is acceptable and valuable. The community mindset holding these values demands homogeneity as it is a precursor to gaining access to desired resources of machinery and knowledge. The community’s strength is driven by institutional normative and cognitive influences, both enabling and inhibiting entrepreneurial ambitions.
Makers must assimilate and are even selected in their ability and desire to uptake the community ethos, as one entrepreneurial maker acknowledges, “the Makerspace attracts these kinds of people that are [helpful]. Everyone here is the same like me. They think the same way about certain things like me and they also know that you come a lot further when you help each other out.” (R13) Cognitive discrepancy remains at a minimum. Meanwhile, an SFS manager explains, “I think attitude as a member for sure is a big deal, you have to feel comfortable with this thought [of openness and sharing], you have to like or get the idea that this co-working thing is something that you have to be ok with.” (R2) Maker beliefs and values thus must be homogenous in order to enter any SFS.
This strong community ethos therefore becomes a bargaining chip in accessing knowledge and machinery located in SFS. The strength of the homogenous community benefits makers looking to enter
entrepreneurship, and user entrepreneurship, in that the community protects and watches out for the like-minded members, creating defense mechanisms against threats. One member describes, “you get this sort of bigger community-like defense mechanism in a way that people have been telling us about [similar projects and] it’s good that others are thinking of us and trying to support us.” (R4) These community acts allowed makers to pursue their projects more effectively while being more aware of their environment, which have implications on the project’s success and for their overall entrepreneurial potential.
In addition, strong community ethos inspires trust and allows makers to more comfortably interact and engage in the sharing processes necessary to gain resources. The answers from interviewees largely demonstrated that to fully access the resources that lie within the space, one must integrate into the community. If not, access is restricted. For example, a university Makerspace maker, who should have had full access into the lab by nature of being a student in that university, explains, “I have to build trust, use the machines supervised, and that is my only option”. (R15) Furthermore, even when formal barriers to SFS are surpassed, makers must actively assimilate into and gain legitimacy in the eyes of the community. The nature of strong community homogeneity enables and inhibits entrepreneurial aspirations differently in Fab Labs and commercial Makerspaces. Becoming part of the community is how knowledge is transferred in ways that are truly valuable for makers in that context-specific solutions and feedback is proposed by community members, and to become part of the community, a maker must adopt the community mindset, strengthening community homogeneity. Makerspaces formally grant access to resources through membership requirements, such as being part of the associated organization like a university or through membership fees, but selection processes also consider how a maker “fits in” (R1) to the Makerspace’s community. Whether for their ability to handle machines and their intentions on machine use, or their social skills that allow to interact with others and connect as “a family” (R1), makers are selected for reasons beyond financial investments. One Makerspace founder explains that the following thought process affects how makers are selected into the Makerspace: “Do you come in and work from the space quite a bit? It’s not essential but it’s kind of a good sign if you’re there a lot of the time. Are you up for talking to people? Do you come for the Friday breakfasts and do you come into the pub? […] People who say yes to all of [those questions] are generally who we want to have in the space.” (R1) These selection procedures allow communities to harbor like-minded people that share values of openness and sharing, community bonding, and prior or in progress machine education, demonstrating the power of cognitive institutional influences.
In Fab Labs, democratic and cheap access to resources is promoted vehemently, but the strong community ethos acts like a bargaining chip to access such resources in totality. However, time and space limitations stop makers from interacting with other makers. As such, community homogeneity becomes less of an issue and makers do not necessarily need to uptake the community mindset, but they also do not
gain the value added of the Fab Lab because they do not gain knowledge resources and intimate relationships with community members. Nevertheless, when interacting with Fab Lab facilitators, it is still possible to be rejected by the Fab Lab if objectives and values do not align with key personnel like the Fab Lab facilitator. One Fab Lab managers explained that in the hypothetical situation that a maker did not agree with the community values of openness and sharing, he would respond “you’re in the wrong place.” (R20)
Costs are also incurred in terms of time during waiting lines or machine reservations. Only those who can afford to spend a day waiting or only those who plan months in advance to reserve a machine can utilize open days. As a result, makers have limited time and space and enters open days for the execution of a goal in mind, cutting out any incentive to think in the SFS and the opportunity to connect with others for support or help. Further, communities do not form during these open days and are described as days of execution, where interactions are like “transactions” (R14) and the space essentially becomes a “shop” (R8) to use machines for cheap sums of money. In sum, the communities of practice within SFS have the ultimate power in keeping the keys of the castle in that they have the final say over who can access the available resources and when, regardless of financial requirements. Furthermore, community homogeneity creates intangible and unexpected costs to potential entrepreneurs in that they must additionally conform to such SFS values before gaining access to necessary resources. Community homogeneity is not discussed in user entrepreneurship theory, and poses a serious divergence between makers and users with entrepreneurial ambitions. Once this is done, the values upheld by the specific SFS community can both enable and inhibit entrepreneurial paths, depending on those specific values; a reality discussed below.
Diverse Skill Sets and Industry Backgrounds
One of the values of the strong SFS communities is to attract makers with different skill sets and industry backgrounds. In the aim of providing co-creation opportunities and partnerships across industries to make inventive and dynamic projects, SFS owners and managers support communities rich in diverse technical educations and interests. These organizations collectively believe that most benefits are derived from a diverse set of people coming from different educational and professional backgrounds, but that are similar in their values and mutual interest of helping one another. All members and users of the SFS studied came from different walks of life coming into making and product design as self-taught individuals, tinkerers, and hobbyists, or directly from formal higher education as engineers, software and hardware technicians, designers, biologists, chemists, and artists, forming “a community of people that are more multidisciplinary, [sometimes] a business background or a technical background or inventors that invent something out of a hobby and then they want to make it professional.” (R2)
The diversity found in SFS communities is an important resource makers hope to access when joining an SFS. One Fab Lab member explains that “inclusion of people and the substantial relationships
with diversely skilled people at [Fab Lab] is one of the biggest values – the community. Because in this way, coincidental encounters happen and can bring a fresh perspective” (R23). As such, SFS communities can create ingenuous projects and support diversely skilled “creative entrepreneurs” (R2). By learning and working with others, “stale environments” (R4) are refreshed and makers are given feedback they wouldn’t have thought of on their own. This enables makers to follow entrepreneurial paths because they can gain advice, insights, and access into markets, industries, and networks they couldn’t have without the key representatives found in the SFS.
In Fab Labs, these forces cannot so easily enable potentially entrepreneurial makers because, once again, there are time and space limitations that lower the chances that a maker will interact with others who can give them the valued and unexpected advice and access. The value of diversely skilled strong SFS communities can thus be more easily accessed in commercial Makerspaces or in Fab Labs during ‘closed-days’. As such, the spontaneous process by which makers create and invent products later commercialized necessitates a predisposition to take SFS projects seriously even if commercialization is not the main motive. Makers who use the Fab Labs for cheap execution and machine education will not gain the value added aspect of being surrounded by diversely skilled makers unless they integrate into the community, entailing larger financial and non-financial investments. For instance, makers that join Makerspaces pay fees to develop skills and entrepreneurial ventures, implying they already value personal ideas and skills. Subsequent projects are then due to personal proactive decisions to make and not totally a result of SFS encouragements.
Formal Education Programs
Both Fab Labs and Makerspaces host paid and free formal education initiatives for community members and the external public. The educational workshops vary in themes but aim to teach useful and relevant skills and are in line with the mission of the SFS. For example, in Fab Labs, educational workshops of different topics utilize open source software in order to firstly, have the makers familiarize themselves with the technology, and secondly, promote the open source ideology championed by the Fab Lab. Makerspaces provide workshops that develop machine skills amongst members, but also provide business classes for makers commercializing products and legitimate SFS and maker existence.
Literature has shown that meaning within the communities is derived from storytelling practices, which also work to secure resources, recruit outsiders, and legitimize the community itself (Aldrich & Fiol, 1994). For entrepreneurs within the formative stages of collective identities to gain attention, resources, and legitimacy and validation, Wry, Lounsbury, and Glynn (2011) argue that cultural entrepreneurship strategies must be employed. Further, individuals can secure necessities and receive legitimacy from collective identities by means of narrative and communication of distinctive but collective identity stories (Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001). Examples of such behavior can be found in the instances where community
agents from the studied SFS provide educational tools and workshops. Educational efforts are common practice in all SFS.
Formal education programs facilitate makers to learn how to use the machinery from experts and experienced makers leading workshops. Some makers describe the SFS as not solely a space to make, which is what first comes to mind, but as a primary location to learn, thereby establishing the SFS as a “new school.” (R18) One commercial Makerspace emphasizes this specific educational aspect even in their name, “Makerversity” and their website that states “Makerversity: campuses for creative businesses”. In this way, Makerversity specifically aims to teach and facilitate learning among creative and maker ventures. Education is a central pillar for SFS, enabling communication of SFS values skill development, and external and member integration and homogenization. One Fab Lab manager states that “learning is one of the basic things of a Fab Lab – so [the makers] come here, learn by themselves with our expertise. So you book a machine and [the time slot] starts and I help. The employees of the Fab Lab also have the task of sharing their skills.” (R20)
SFS formal education provides makers with necessary skills to develop projects. Makers can pick and choose which skills they need and request themed workshops from their SFS according to those needs. These workshops thereby enable makers towards entrepreneurship as their skills and, further, their projects improve, becoming more attractive to investors and clients. On the other hand, the formal education workshops are also vessels that transfer knowledge of community values to community members and are therefore, representations of normative and cognitive institutional pillars. Managers and facilitators were found to be thorough and rigorous encouraging and promoting mentalities of openness through the ways they teach makers how to use the SFS. One Makerspace facilitator explains, “I’m very clear about open source culture and the whole maker culture that is all about building on what others have done and that’s why all of this has grown so fast. I want them to contribute. So if they use a file made by someone else, they have to reference it and share their own files.” (R14)
This study found that the dialogue on the rationale for freely-sharing practices were similar and oftentimes identical among users and members of SFS and their facilitator and educator counterparts, meaning that normative and cognitive influences successfully transfer to novice makers. In addition, the community ethos rationale carried across different SFS and while there was variety in understandings of openness, all SFS were found to embrace similar reasoning for adopting open practices and op, enforcing community homogeneity within and across SFS maker communities. This thereby affected the ways projects were created so that not only educational programs and workshops, but also products created by those taught in the workshops, reflect values of the SFS. For example, one Fab Lab maker chose to use open source software to for their project in the aim of achieving the specific benefit of being able to share it with others online and for it to be easily understood by those who would view and use her document,
“[Others] can’t use [commercial] software because it’s too expensive and too difficult to use for those not accustomed to it. So how can we communicate and collaborate if we can’t speak even the same software language? So that’s why you need open source software, open labs and they have to be connected to any place in the world.” (R18) As such, designs are products of educational efforts promoting institutional normative standards and cognitive beliefs and values. In sum, community driven educational efforts are created and co-created by all members of the SFS in order to teach practical skills and community values. Community attitudes towards entrepreneurship are demonstrated during these times. Fab Labs do not have entrepreneurship in mind, and thus, their educational workshops do not directly encourage entrepreneurial ambitions, instead focusing instead on experimentation and “opening up technology”. (R19) As a Fab Lab facilitator explains that the Fab Lab “should be a place to experiment and share. It’s not experiment and sell.” (R20) Consequently, many interviewees insinuated that inspiration to commercialize and enter entrepreneurship was not a result of formal education projects, and that these workshops demonstrated community values and developed necessary skills, enabling entrepreneurship indirectly. Makerspaces providing education to makers already hoping to commercialize products instead clearly encourage entrepreneurship in providing workshops that focus on needs of new maker ventures. Formal educational workshops can enable entrepreneurs directly and indirectly, but more effectively when those workshops demonstrate an appreciation for entrepreneurship.
Informal Community Driven Education
Maker learning also occurs in the informal and spontaneous interactions between makers that are not formally designated to teach within the SFS.
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Although access to machinery is the most obvious resource motivating makers to join SFS, creating a base for makers, the glue that holds the SFS together is the access to knowledge gained by visiting and joining each space because “whether [a maker] can achieve [a project] or not depends actually on who is there to help them.” (R9) Once entry into the SFS and community is granted, informal access to knowledge was gained in two ways; knowledge available in online platforms where projects are documented and shared and in informal interactions such as conversations with other members, as found in the literature (Cowan & Jonard, 2000; Fernie, Green, Weller, & Newcombe, 2003; Grabher & Ibert, 2014; McKinlay, 2000). As one member describes, “you can grab coffee with someone instead of spending so long online and going through so many forums. Instead, you know your answer specifically for your problem in minutes.” (R13)Informal education within SFS greatly enable makers to follow entrepreneurial paths by means of providing intimate context-specific feedback and solutions to makers on projects. Fellow makers value their community and the success of their community and thoughtfully think through issues with makers, as one explains, “whoever is there and has time, just gathers around and we are really thinking about [their project]. It’s not like trying to do it in five minutes – no, we are really trying to help out.” (R2) These practices are
