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

越来越多的人正在通过在网上市场出售实物来将他们的手工艺技能商业化。这些“制造者”将他们的爱好转化为创收活动，但他们往往没有接受过正式的商业培训，也没有得到社会支持。为了让这些制造商获得可持续的生计，他们必须找到自己的立足点，不仅是作为工匠，也是作为商人--他们必须成为“有创意的数字企业家”。在这个项目中，研究团队将采访和观察制造商的工作实践，这些制造商试图使用数字工具基于他们的工艺创建业务。最终，这项研究项目将为新技术的开发提供信息，这些新技术可以帮助制造商有效地运营企业，并在他们形成创意企业家身份时获得社会支持。研究小组将特别关注女性制造商、代表性不足的少数民族和资源匮乏地区的制造商的需求，帮助他们成为成功的制造商企业家，在创意经济中提供财务独立和更广泛的代表性。这个项目有可能增加未充分就业或失业但拥有可以利用的手工艺技能的人的收入和福祉。对于这个项目，跨学科研究团队将进行人种学研究，以更好地了解向创业转型的制造者的需求。该项目将“制造者”定义为概念化、设计和生产实物产品的人。虽然制造者领域将是多样化的，但该项目将特别关注有商业意图的制造者和那些主要使用在线渠道将其商品货币化的制造者，即那些试图成为创造性数字企业家的人。这项研究将为人们如何在数字化的在线平台上成为创造性的企业家提供新的理论和理解。研究结果将有助于理解创业精神、工作组织研究、职业认同、计算机支持的合作工作和人机交互。这项研究将发展关于制造商如何与数字技术和同行网络互动以创造商品和接触客户的知识，以及包括新界面和互动模式在内的技术如何支持商业运营、职业认同发展和创业教育。该项目的贡献将有助于形成创意创业理论，以确定和解释创意企业家在商业、实践和在线环境中成功的关键因素。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.