Relationship, Resource and Performance of Makerspace in China: From the Perspective of Business Ties and Political Ties

Tianfei Yang and Xianyi Long

SAGE Open, 2025, vol. 15, issue 3, 21582440251351803

Abstract: The organizational relationships that makerspaces cultivate with their business partners and government agencies exert a significant influence on their resource allocation strategies and subsequent performance outcomes. This study examines the impact of both business ties and political ties, conceptualized as facets of organizational relationships, on makerspaces’ competitive performance, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of resource bricolage and resource slack. Furthermore, environmental turbulence is recognized as a crucial boundary condition influencing the relationship between these ties and performance outcomes. Utilizing an empirical research design, data was collected through 216 valid questionnaires from makerspaces spanning diverse regions and industries. Systematic data analysis was conducted using AMOS 21.0 and SPSS 20.0. The findings indicate a positive correlation between both business ties and political ties, and competitive performance. Notably, both resource bricolage and resource slack mediate these relationships. However, environmental turbulence amplifies only the relationship between political ties and competitive performance. This research underscores the significance of organizational ties in enhancing the effectiveness of makerspaces’ incubation role in fostering innovation and entrepreneurship. By integrating external organizational relationships with the management and utilization of resources, this study offers valuable insights for the construction and optimization of makerspaces. It emphasizes that strengthening business and political ties with relevant entrepreneurial entities can effectively improve resource allocation efficiency, provide superior incubation services for innovation and entrepreneurship, and ultimately attain a heightened competitive advantage.

Keywords: business ties; political ties; resource bricolage; resource slack; competitive performance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440251351803 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:3:p:21582440251351803

DOI: 10.1177/21582440251351803

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in SAGE Open
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().