Harnessing the potential of additive manufacturing technologies: Challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurial strategies

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM), a revolutionary production technique that will make many previously inconceivable innovations a reality, is transforming the manufacturing sector. The technologies behind AM have a generic character and possess immense and transformative potential that will be felt across different sectors of the economy. This paper studies how entrepreneurs can access, exploit, and diffuse this new disruptive knowledge, as well as the potential challenges that lie ahead. Further, we examine the magnitude of the knowledge pool created by the Top 10 countries in AM research from 2011 to 2016; specifically, we determine the leading countries, the pattern of organizational and international collaborations, leading disciplines contributing to AM, and the pattern in authors' affiliations. We find that the US is clearly the dominant country, while China witnessed a notable acceleration in AM research between 2014 and 2016; we also show that universities are the predominant actor in codified AM knowledge creation. Using this information, we paint a vivid picture of the technological and market opportunities for entrepreneurs and identify the gaps in the current knowledge production environment; we find that the challenges currently faced by entrepreneurs could be overcome through academic entrepreneurship, collective entrepreneurship, and the actions of an entrepreneurial state.