Makers or breakers? Shared fabrication spaces as a double-edged sword for entrepreneurship

The “Maker Movement” represents a growing community of creative innovators aiming to democratize the means of production through open access to Shared Fabrication Spaces (SFSs). Maker activity in SFSs is often praised in its potential to promote entrepreneurial creativity. However, very little is known about whether and how SFSs relate to entrepreneurship. Herein, we offer an empirical exploration of these questions by conducting a qualitative-inductive study of 7 SFSs and 23 makers. Our findings point to an intriguing contradiction; although some SFS elements promote nascent entrepreneurial activity, others erect barriers that repress it. Consistent with expectations in the literature, SFSs do provide cheap access to prototyping facilities, specialized knowledge, and valuable contact with early adopters. Nevertheless, SFSs also require conformity to community values, including open sharing of ideas and a dominant ethos of resistance to commercialization and profit. Seen in light of the general enthusiasm for the promise of the maker movement as an entrepreneurial catalyst, our study provides a sobering perspective and much-needed detail about how community-based innovation may also impede entrepreneurial commercialization.