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EMAC 2024 Annual


Towards a paradoxical treatment effect: are fablabs
(A2024-119562)

Published: May 28, 2024

AUTHORS

Vellera Cyrielle, Toulouse School of Management; stéphane salgado, Toulouse School of Management - Université Toulouse 1 Capitole

ABSTRACT

This research aims to shed light on the facilitating role of non-commercial, open-access fablabs in commercial entrepreneurship, particularly for innovations emanating from less conventional entrepreneurial figures: users. In this perspective, qualitative interviews were conducted with users-innovators /users-entrepreneurs on the one hand, and fab managers on the other. Using a process-based analysis approach ("from maker to market"), three key contributions are proposed: (1) fablabs are facilitators of user entrepreneurship but the resulting "treatment effect" is limited, and sometimes even counterproductive; (2) commercially oriented entrepreneurship is contrary to the culture of fablabs, inducing an ambivalent "treatment effect"; (3) fablabs' action capabilities tend to transform towards “accidental” pre-incubation. These results enrich two theoretical fields: user entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship in fablabs and provide new elements to support user entrepreneurship and to better identify the postures and capacities for action of fablabs in this field.