From Technological to Symbolic Innovation? Open Source, Maker Movement and Global Demand for 3D Printers

Abstract

The recent turbulent evolution of the 3D printing industry is strictly related with two important phenomena: the widespread adoption of Open Source business models by new companies on the one hand, and the increasing importance of communities of users, such as the so-called Maker Movement, on the other. This study analyzes the factors that drive the adoption of different types of 3D printers and argues that, in order to understand adoption patterns, 3D printers should be considered as both technological and symbolic innovations, according to the classification originally introduced by Hirschman (1982). While technological innovations are adopted for their technical utility, the adoption of symbolic product innovations serves mainly to communicate a novel social meaning to a specific pre-existing product. The recent growth of communities of interest like the Maker Movement, that strongly endorse the Open Source philosophy, has led Open Source 3D printers to gain many of the features of symbolic innovations. Taking advantage of an international sample of 3D printer users from 39 different countries the study shows empirically that while the high-quality 3D printers of established producers (3D proprietary printers) are mainly adopted for technologically-driven reasons, the adherence to the Maker Movement and to its ethical values is the main reason behind the adoption of 3D printers by new producers adopting Open Source business models (3D OS printers). Moreover this is especially true for the users that started to use 3D printers after 2011, when the Maker philosophy became predominant. The findings show that the global demand for 3D printer is increasingly fragmented between users driven by different motivations in their adoption choices. Moreover the analysis suggests that the novel symbolic nature of 3D OS printers should be explicitly acknowledged by producers willing to gain market shares in the industry.