"L'impact d'une structure d'accompagnement sur l'intention et l'acte entrepreneurial d'étudiants de l'enseignement supérieur." Cas d'étude: Venturelab.

Abstract

Executive summary:

The student status has been created in Belgium in 2017 with the goal to revitalize its economy through numerous actions such as the Marshall Plan 4.0 which carries out actions in the Walloon region. Wallonia is a little behind in comparison to Flanders.

The Walloon government organizes evenings to combat cultural barriers such as fear of failure and promotes support structures to help young people create their businesses. According to Belga, in 2013, one in two Walloons under the age of thirty is planning to start their own business and thus immerse themselves in the entrepreneurial process, yet the rate of creation is not as high. It is due to the fears felt by students such as the fear of lack of means. Incubators were created to respond to students' fears and facilitate the search for solutions.

Incubators are business start-up support structures for students. They offer many services such as coaching, access to co-working spaces, connecting with local experts, training, etc.

The focus of this work was on the impact of the support structure on the gap between intention and the entrepreneurial act. The Venturelab, a student incubator in Liège, is the focus of our analysis. 25 interviews were carried out with project promoters or ex-incumbents.

The intention and the entrepreneurial act could not be addressed without mentioning capacity, an important criteria in entrepreneurship and how the entrepreneurial culture affects that. Capacity is composed of feasibility and desirability. In our work, we compared Flanders and Wallonia in terms of their actions towards young entrepreneurs.

The characteristics of these students, the success factors related to their project, the importance of the family on the entrepreneurial decision were analyzed and students were then asked about their fears. The most important thing for us was how the Venturelab helped the students overcome their fears. The different fears were: the fear of starting a project, the fear of lack of means, the feeling of loneliness, the lack of legitimacy and the lack of network. But thanks to the interviews, we detected an additional fear, the fear of no and the fear of being stuck in an employee position. The actions taken by the Venturelab seem to mitigate students’ fear and therefore allow them to take action. With this study, we contributed to the theory a specific knowledge of student entrepreneurs’ fears towards an incubator and a nuance of the impostor syndrome.

Finally, this work has enabled us to identify new lines of research. We can reflect on the impact of other Walloon incubators. Additionally, we can also wonder about the other solutions proposed by the Walloon region to help young people. And we could also learn from Flanders.