Unconventional Entrepreneurship: Shaping Practices Within Fablabs

Unconventional entrepreneurship, driven by passion and hobby-related interests, rather than by conventional professional opportunities, can be facilitated within collaborative spaces, which provide access to collective resources. However, aspiring entrepreneurs might also experience uncertainty within these spaces, because of the lack of structured mechanisms to leverage resources. Prior research has not fully uncovered the practices through which actors’ interactions in the space can be structured in order to manage uncertainty. We explore these practices within Fablabs (fabrication laboratories). We contribute to research on uncertainty in the context of unconventional entrepreneurship and on collaborative spaces. We specifically identify three practices to manage uncertainty: community shaping, knowledge shaping and entrepreneurial culture shaping. Through an inductive qualitative research, we show how they shape the space by setting boundaries to it, allowing uncertainty to be managed and unconventional entrepreneurship to flourish.