ABSTRACT
The enormous scale of suffering, breadth of societal impact, and ongoing uncertainty wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic introduced dynamics seldom examined in the crisis entrepreneurship literature. Previous research indicates that when a crisis causes a failure of public goods, spontaneous citizen ventures often emerge to leverage unique local knowledge to rapidly customize abundant external resources to meet immediate needs. However, as outsiders, emergent citizen groups responding to the dire shortage of personal protective equipment at the onset of COVID-19 lacked local knowledge and legitimacy. In this study, we examine how entrepreneurial citizens mobilized collective resources in attempts to gain acceptance and meet local needs amid the urgency of the pandemic. Through longitudinal case studies of citizen groups connected to makerspaces in four U.S. cities, we study how they adapted to address the resource and legitimacy limitations they encountered. We identify three mechanisms—augmenting, circumventing, and attenuating—that helped transient citizen groups calibrate their resource mobilization based on what they learned over time. We highlight how extreme temporality imposes limits on resourcefulness and legitimation, making it critical for collective entrepreneurs to learn when to work within their limitations rather than try to overcome them.
ABSTRACT
Along with the first pandemic wave of COVID-19, many makers' initiatives shed light on the innovative potential of developing computer assisted machinery services for the health sector. Even since before that, collaborative innovation structures such as FabLabs have been arising in public health institutions, which indicates the increasing demand for technological tools as well as innovation assistance in the public health sector. However, how FabLabs facilitate innovation processes contingent on hospital context is a question that needs to be further explored. In this article, a single case study on the Hephaïstos FabLab at the Bicêtre Hospital in France is developed in order to understand the role that a FabLab service can play in fostering innovation in a hospital ecosystem. The results show how innovation is stimulated by the FabLab proximity, the methodological approach developed by the FabLab team and the participants' profiles. These insights are pertinent for hospital managers to help identify strategies and ensure continuity of a FabLab service. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The enormous scale of suffering, breadth of societal impact, and ongoing uncertainty wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic introduced dynamics seldom examined in the crisis entrepreneurship literature. Previous research indicates that when a crisis causes a failure of public goods, spontaneous citizen ventures often emerge to leverage unique local knowledge to rapidly customize abundant external resources to meet immediate needs. However, as outsiders, emergent citizen groups responding to the dire shortage of personal protective equipment at the onset of COVID-19 lacked local knowledge and legitimacy. In this study, we examine how entrepreneurial citizens mobilized collective resources in attempts to gain acceptance and meet local needs amid the urgency of the pandemic. Through longitudinal case studies of citizen groups connected to makerspaces in four U.S. cities, we study how they adapted to address the resource and legitimacy limitations they encountered. We identify three mechanisms-augmenting, circumventing, and attenuating-that helped transient citizen groups calibrate their resource mobilization based on what they learned over time. We highlight how extreme temporality imposes limits on resourcefulness and legitimation, making it critical for collective entrepreneurs to learn when to work within their limitations rather than try to overcome them.