Makerspaces' Adaptive Mechanism Under The Shock Of COVID-19 Pandemic

Since China's government put forward “mass entrepreneurship and innovation” in2015,makerspaces have developed rapidly in which a large number of start-ups and entrepreneurial teams choose to settle.Compared with traditional accelerators and incubators,makerspaces not only provide entrepreneurial services for small and medium sized enterprises and teams,but also guide multi-participants to conduct value sharing.At present,co-working spaces are the main type of makerspaces,which are in a period of high-speed expansion.As a type of platform organization,co-working spaces build platforms for space users to share resources and co-construct communities,promoting value co-creation among multi-participants.The COVID-19 pandemic has caused huge losses for makerspaces represented by co-working spaces.Plenty of makerspaces are faced with challenges such as the postponement of resuming work,makers' withdrawing their rents,and the difficulty of capital turnover.However,under the sudden shock of the external environment,some makerspaces can respond quickly and adjust actively so as to adapt to the new external environment and keep sustainable development.Therefore,why these makerspaces exhibit strong adaptability is the problem which is worth of in-depth discussion.Recently,the research scenarios of makerspaces are considered before the COVID-19 pandemic,and existing literature on makerspace focuses on their types,basic functions and operational performance.Relevant research on makerspaces from the perspective of entrepreneurial ecosystem is still nascent.These studies tend to employ qualitative research method to reveal the core operational mechanisms but there are relatively few studies use theoretical research method.The research on the adaptive mechanism of makerspaces are still lacking.To fill this gap,this paper discusses the adaptive mechanism of makerspaces faced with the impact of COVID-19 shock from the perspective of entrepreneurial ecosystem by combining qualitative and quantitative methods.The following three research questions are discussed in this dissertation:(1)what are the adaptive processes of makerspaces under the impact of this pandemic?(2)What are the key factors in each stage during makerspaces' adaptation process,and what are the relationships between these factors?(3)How can makerspaces' multi-participants respond to the crisis through mutual influence and cooperation during the adaptive process?This dissertation concerning makerspaces' adaptability under the shock of COVID-19 is organized in 8 chapters.The first Chapter mainly introduces the research background of this adaptive mechanism study,research questions,research contents,the adopted research methods as well as theoretical contributions.Chapter 2 reviews relevant literature,including entrepreneurial ecosystem,makerspace,co-working space and crisis management theory.Based on grounded theory,Chapter 3 discusses makerspaces' adaptation process,and proposes a two-stage theoretical model that involves network recovery stage and network reconfiguration stage.Combing the two-stage theoretical model and relevant literature,Chapter 4 puts forward hypotheses of network recovery phase and network reconfiguration phase.Chapter 5 describes the specific process of empirical research design,which contains makerspace questionnaire design,the measurement of key variables at each stage,the collection of makerspace questionnaires and main statistical analysis methods employed in subsequent chapters.Chapter 6 reports the empirical results of the two-stage adaptive process theoretical model.The specific relationships of the key factors in each phase and the method that multi-participants in co-working spaces respond to the shock are elaborated in Chapter7.Chapter 8 summarizes the main research results of makerspaces' adaptive mechanism,and meanwhile offers theoretical contributions,practical implications and areas of future research.The main results of this adaptive mechanism study are as follows:(1)Makerspaces' adaptation process under the COVID-19 shock includes two stages,namely network recovery phase and network reconfiguration phase.In the first stage,a makerspace's crisis response capability helps to promotes network recovery through obtaining its political legitimacy.A makerspace's crisis response capability contains information acquisition capability,information analysis capabilities,rapid response capability as well as communication and coordination capability.Industry characteristic promotes the positive relationship between a makerspace's crisis response capability and its' political legitimacy acquisition.The trust among the settled organizations promote the connection between political legitimacy acquisition and network recovery.(2)During the stage of network reconfiguration,the dynamic capabilities of the settled companies and the value co-creation among multi-participants can promote network reconfiguration.The dynamic capabilities of the settled companies involve relationship management capability,integration capability and innovation capability.The dynamic capabilities of the settled companies can directly or indirectly impact network reconfiguration through the value co-creation among multi-participants.The value co-creation among multi-participants includes economic value creation and co-construction of community brand.Institutional support promotes the relationship between the dynamic capability of the settled companies and value co-creation of a makerspace's participants.(3)The theoretical model of the two-stage adaptation process is tested through empirical research.During network recovery stage,a makerspace's crisis response capability helps it gain political legitimacy;the acquisition of political legitimacy has a positive influence on network recovery;the acquisition of political legitimacy plays the full mediating role between the relationship of a makerspace's crisis response capability and network recovery;industry characteristic plays the moderating role between the relationship of a makerspace's crisis response capability and legitimacy acquisition;the trust among settled companies plays the moderating effect between the relationship of a makerspace's legitimacy acquisition and network recovery.(4)The empirical results of network reconfiguration stage shows that the dynamic capability of a makerspace's settled companies positively affects network reconfiguration;the dynamic capability of the settled companies positively affects the value co-creation among a space's participants;the value co-creation among multi-participants positively affects network reconfiguration;the dynamic capability of the settled companies can promote network reconfiguration through value co-creation methods,showing that value co-creation plays the mediating role;institutional support does not moderate the relationship between the dynamic capability and value co-creation among multi-participants;institutional support does not enhance the value co-creation's mediating role in the influence of the dynamic capability on network reconfiguration.(5)The specific method of value co-creation within co-working spaces is discussed.In an environment where the boundaries of time,space,and scenes are blurred,the integration of individuals' work,leisure and social interactions create many possibilities to realize the cross-boundary value co-creation of their organizations(teams).Through self-organization,different organizations within co-working spaces may build collaboration relationships with other participants,which makes the boundaries permeable.Therefore,information and resources can be transmitted quickly.The process of opening,blurring and restructuring the boundaries at the organizational level also shows the process of deep interactions among space members.The interactions among makerspaces' multi-participants make them better deal with this pandemic shock.The research of makerspaces' adaptive mechanism also provides some theoretical contributions.First,this dissertation proposes the theoretical framework containing two-stage of makerspaces' adaptation process under the shock of this pandemic.Research on makerspaces' adaptability mechanism from entrepreneurial ecosystem enriches the research results on the adaptability of makerspaces under external shocks,expands the operation mechanism of makerspace ecosystems,and lays the foundation for empirical research on makerspaces.Second,this dissertation empirically tests the relationships among the important factors in network recovery stage.The empirical research of network recovery stage not only analyzes the direct effect in the theoretical model of this stage,but also deeply explores mediating mechanism(introducing political legitimacy as the mediating variable)and moderating mechanism(introducing the industry characteristic and inter-organizational trust among the settled companies as moderating variables).These results open the theoretical “black box” of the initial adaptation stage of makerspaces.Third,this dissertation empirically tests the relationships among the important factors in network reconfiguration stage.In addition to testing the direct effect in the theoretical framework of this stage,the empirical research of network reconfiguration stage also explores mediation mechanism(introducing value co-creation among multi-participants within space as the mediating variable),moderation mechanism(introducing institutional support as the moderating variable),and moderated mediation mechanism(testing whether institutional support changes the mediating effect of value co-creation among multi-participants),which helps to reveal the specific process of network reconfiguration and enriches makerspaces' empirical research.Fourth,this dissertation articulates the specific method of co-working spaces' value co-creation.Based on the integration of individuals' work,leisure and social interactions,as well as the opening,blurring and reconstruction of organizational boundaries,this dissertation proposes the value co-creation method within co-working spaces.Meanwhile,it fills the research gap of co-working space's the value creation mechanism.