Towards a Paradoxical Treatment Effect: Fablabs “Accidental” Facilitators of User Entrepreneurship?

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.
JEL Codes: L26, O30