Collaborative Research: FW-HTF-P: Using Technology to Transform Makers into Creative Entrepreneurs

More and more individuals are commercializing their skills in crafting physical goods by selling them in online markets. These “makers” turn their hobbies into income generating activities, however they often have no formal business training nor social support. For these makers to earn a sustainable livelihood, they must find their footing not only as craftspeople, but also as businesspeople—they must become “creative digital entrepreneurs.” In this project, the research team will interview and observe the work practices of makers attempting to create a business based on their craft using digital tools.

Ultimately, this research project will inform the development of new technologies that can help makers effectively run a business and obtain social support as they form their identity as creative entrepreneurs. The research team will particularly focus on the needs of makers who are women, underrepresented minorities, and those in low-resourced regions, to aid them to become successful maker entrepreneurs, providing financial independence and broader representation in the creative economy.

There is potential for this project to increase the income and wellbeing of people who are underemployed or unemployed but have craft skills that they could leverage.

For this project, the interdisciplinary research team will conduct ethnographic research to better understand the needs of makers transitioning to entrepreneurship. This project works with a broad definition of “makers” as people who conceptualize, design, and produce physical goods. While maker domains will be diverse, this project will specifically focus on makers who have commercial intent and those who are primarily using online channels to monetize their goods, i.e., those attempting to become creative digital entrepreneurs.

This research will develop new theories and understandings of how people become creative entrepreneurs in digitally enabled online platforms. The results will contribute to the understanding of entrepreneurship, organizational studies of work, occupational identity, computer-supported cooperative work, and human-computer interaction. This research will develop knowledge on how makers interact with digital technologies and peer networks to create goods and reach customers, and how technology, including new interfaces and interaction modalities, can support business operations, occupational identity development and entrepreneurship education.

This project’s contributions will help shape a theory of creative entrepreneurship that identifies and explains the factors critical to creative entrepreneurs’ success in business, practice, and industry in online settings.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.