Makers’ relationship network, knowledge acquisition and innovation performance: An empirical analysis from China

In makerspaces, the embeddedness in open communities helps makers to build relationship networks and gives them access to ample knowledge, which will be finally transformed into the source of innovation. Based on strong-weak ties theory and the knowledge-based view, this study divides the ties in the makers' relationship network into strong and weak ties according to the intensity and explores their effects on makers' knowledge acquisition and innovation performance, respectively. An empirical analysis of the data collected from 232 makers in China indicates that the makers' relationship network has an indirect positive effect on their innovation performance while knowledge acquisition plays a partial intermediary role between the makers’ relationship network and their innovation performance. The results can help makers focus more on building and maintaining a relationship network through open community embedding and give insights into how a makerspace helps makers build a relationship network to improve their knowledge integration and utilization efficiency.