Mask-makers as Emerging Creative Entrepreneurs During COVID-19^*

Abstract

Shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE) across the United States at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic created entrepreneurial opportunities for sewists and makers. In the United States in March and April 2020, masks were not readily available to the general public from existing retailers and PPE for medical use was being rationed for healthcare workers. Sewists and crafters, professionals and amateurs alike, began making and selling and/or donating masks. For individuals with sewing skills and time, sewing and selling masks became a lifeline financially, personally, and socially. To understand the experiences of people who made and distributed handmade masks during the early months of the pandemic in the United States, an interdisciplinary team developed an online cross-sectional survey instrument using a qualitative-dominated approach with both open and closed questions. This chapter explores themes identified from a sample of 94 participants, predominantly female-identifying, who created an enterprise or added a product line to an existing business. The sample includes individuals who did not identify as a ‘creative entrepreneur’ prior to the pandemic but did identify as an entrepreneur after starting a mask-making venture. Informed by entrepreneurship literature, the authors observed that these nascent entrepreneurs articulated recognisable motivations for social entrepreneurship, showed signs of pre-existing entrepreneurial mindsets, and employed business models and marketing tactics of entrepreneurs, largely without any business training. Implications for the study include increased recognition of latent entrepreneurial readiness, interest of women in social entrepreneurship, and higher levels of business knowledge among women than previously recognised.

Citation

Grannemann, H., Reis, J., Murphy, M. and Segares, M. (2023), "Mask-makers as Emerging Creative Entrepreneurs During COVID-19^*", Hill, I., Elias, S.R.S.T.A., Dobson, S. and Jones, P. (Ed.) Creative (and Cultural) Industry Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century (Contemporary Issues in Entrepreneurship Research, Vol. 18A), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 75-89. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2040-72462023000018A006