Nicolas Gontran Parisot's research while affiliated with A.T. Kearney and other places

Fabrication spaces (fab-spaces), such as TechShops or Fab Labs, provide access to sophisticated digital manufacturing technologies to individuals. They could be a new institutional context which influences entrepreneurial behaviour. To understand how this might happen, we used a grounded approach to examine the experience of eight individuals who have benefitted from fab-spaces to push forward their entrepreneurial ventures. This examination led to the development of new hypotheses regarding the potential role of fab-spaces in the entrepreneurial journey. In particular, it has emerged that fab-spaces might affect the entry phase of a new venture by lowering the 'perception of performance' threshold. Fab-spaces also affect post-entry barriers, as they provide an opportunity to entrepreneurs for fast learning, and consequently, to establish effective routines. However, this paper also shows how these positive effects might be moderated by fab-spaces' institutional setup, chiefly their location and cultural characteristics.

In the spring-summer 2013, 73 Fab-spaces were identified through a review of websites, newsletters, research papers and two websites which list the majority of the physical Fab-spaces: http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/ and http://wiki.fablab.is. With “Fab-spaces” we encompass a number of organisations which provide a suite of fabrication technologies openly accessible for use by individuals and firms alike. Through Fab-spaces it is possible to access professional grade manufacturing technologies once only available to trade organisations, including additive manufacturing equipment; Laser cutting and CNC tools; wood and metal working machinery and electrical/electronic components assembling tools. Fab-spaces are growing in number in many countries, taking a variety of forms and providing a range of innovation/production environments. Many Fab-spaces are physical places, the most famous of which are known as Makerspaces, Hackerspaces, FabLabs and TechShops, however, Fab-spaces include also those which provide access to digital manufacturing technologies remotely via internet platforms such as Shapeways or i.materialise For inclusion in the database Fab-spaces needed to be more than one year old, as it was assumed that these had more mature and hence more stable characteristics. Further, the information on the website had to be in English or could be translated with tools such as “Google Translate”. Overall, a list of 65 variables, based on Osterwalder and Pigneur's Business Models Canvass (See "Characterisation template" tab) and their codification, either binary (i.e. yes-no) or categorical (e.g. Low, Medium, High) was collated and used for the charaterisation of Fab-spaces, based on of the information available on each website (see "2013 Fab-spaces" tab).

Fabrication spaces (Fab-spaces) provide individuals with access to numerous manufacturing equipment (including additive manufacturing), to carry out different types of projects. Although scholars are starting to speculate about the importance of these new organisational forms and their potential for future distributed innovation and production ecologies, this phenomenon is still largely unexplored. Building on existing multidisciplinary research, this paper offers the first empirical analysis of existing fab-spaces as providers of knowledge and production competencies. Amongst all the possible perspectives to derive a framework, we choose that of fab-space users who have an entrepreneurial intention. After deriving an analytical framework to position fab-spaces in the current academic discourse, the paper develops a classification, which considers the competences available to entrepreneurs, via fab-spaces, in conjunction with how these competences are provided. The resulting map reveals the complementarities amongst the different fab-spaces. It also shows that the current portfolio of fab-spaces supports mainly the distribution of innovation across locations and social groups. Several types of fab-spaces are currently well placed to support the transition from innovation to manufacturing, but their geographical distribution and range of manufacturing capabilities are not yet enough to provide a fully distributed manufacturing model. This study has practical consequences for entrepreneurs, in the better identification of the appropriate fab-spaces for their needs, and for policy-makers, to help position the different types of fab-spaces as elements for national systems of innovation and production. © 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Fab-spaces provide individuals with access to numerous manufacturing equipment (including additive manufacturing), to carry out different types of projects. Although scholars are starting to speculate about the importance of these new organizational forms and their potential for future distributed innovation and production ecologies, this phenomenon is still largely unexplored. Building on existing multidisciplinary research, this paper offers the first empirical analysis of existing fab-spaces as providers of knowledge and production competencies. Amongst all the possible perspectives to derive a framework, we choose that of fab-spaces users who have an entrepreneurial intention. After deriving an analytical framework to position fab-spaces in the current academic discourse, the paper develops a classification, which considers the competences available to entrepreneurs, via fab-spaces, in conjunction with how these competences are provided. The resulting map reveals the complementarities amongst the different fab-spaces. It also shows that the current portfolio of fab-spaces supports mainly the distribution of innovation across locations and social groups. Several types of fab-spaces are currently well placed to support the transition from innovation to manufacturing, but their geographical distribution and range of manufacturing capabilities is not yet enough to provide a fully distributed manufacturing model. This study has practical consequences for entrepreneurs, in the better identification of the appropriate fab-spaces for their needs, and for policy makers, to help position the different types of fab-spaces as elements for national systems of innovation and production.

Fabrication spaces (fab-spaces), such as TechShops or FabLabs, provide access to sophisticated digital manufacturing technologies to individuals. They could be a new institutional context which influences entrepreneurial behaviour. To understand how this might happen, we used a grounded approach to examine the experience of 8 individuals who have benefitted from fab-spaces to push forward their entrepreneurial ventures. This examination led to the development of new hypotheses regarding the potential role of fab-spaces in the entrepreneurial journey. In particular, it has emerged that fab-spaces might affect the entry phase of a new venture by lowering the "perception of performance" threshold. Fab-spaces also affect post-entry barriers, as they provide an opportunity to entrepreneurs for fast learning, and consequently, to establish effective routines. However, this paper also shows how these positive effects might be moderated by fab-spaces’ institutional setup, chiefly their location and cultural characteristics