The first edition, held in Mons, focused on the structural dimensions of support, notably through the analysis of Collaborative Innovation Spaces (ECI). The second edition, held in Quebec City in 2019, broadened the focus to an ecosystem approach, exploring the dynamics of interconnection between support organisations and territories. In 2024, the third edition, hosted by ESSCA on its Bordeaux campus, began to deconstruct entrepreneurial support by questioning its theoretical foundations, its excesses and its blind spots. On that occasion, the founding team – UCLouvain (Amélie Jacquemin), ESSCA (Xavier Lesage), Université Laval (Michel de Blois) and ESG UQAM (Olivier Germain, Chaire Entrepreneuriat, Altérité et Société) – expanded to include the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Lab Chair at the University of Montpellier. This fourth edition, supported by the AEI and AIREPME, addresses a question that is as simple as it is essential: should one be supported? And what does choosing not to be mean? In a context marked by growing tensions between the injunction to be autonomous and the proliferation of support schemes, this edition sets out to explore the new frontiers of entrepreneurial support. It will examine the growing diversity of trajectories, profiles, formats and timeframes of support, in an environment transformed by digital technology, budgetary constraints and changing entrepreneurial expectations. Bringing together researchers, practitioners and actors on the ground, the workshop aims to open a debate rooted in practice, while remaining attentive to the theoretical, critical and ethical issues of support. The objective is to think of support no longer as a norm or a given, but as a situated relationship – sometimes chosen, sometimes refused, sometimes imposed. This workshop aims to generate reflections and papers that may be published in the special issue of the Revue Française de Gestion, coordinated by the scientific committee.

 Themes (non-exhaustive list):

• Support experiences and trajectories:
  • Choosing support or not taking it up
  • Forms of autonomy and self-sufficiency
  • Discontinuous trajectories, withdrawals, changes of direction
• Figures, stances and professions in entrepreneurial support:
  • Emerging occupations and professional reconfigurations
  • Hospitality, care and relational ethics
  • From prescriptive support to co-construction
• Support environments, spaces and cultures:
  • Support schemes as communities of practice
  • Organisational culture, shared narratives and symbols
  • Incubation timeframes and evolutionary processes
• Dynamics of inclusion, exclusion and legitimation:
  • Accessibility of support schemes
  • The invisibility of certain groups or pathways
  • Ecosystem legitimacy and the territorialisation of support

Effects, limits and ambivalences of entrepreneurial support:

• Risks of dependency, standardisation or zombification
• The place of failure and of non-support
• Evaluation methods and institutional tensions

Submissions may take the form of extended abstracts (minimum 3,000 words excluding bibliographic references, setting out the research problem and its relevance, the theoretical framework, the methodology, the expected results and the potential contribution) or full papers written in French. They must be sent exclusively as an anonymised PDF to the following addresses: karim.messeghem@umontpellier.fr / xavier.lesage@essca.fr / amelie.jacquemin@uclouvain.be

RFG special issue

Authors aiming to publish in the RFG special issue entitled: “Être ou ne pas être accompagné·e ? Les nouvelles frontières du soutien entrepreneurial” (To be or not to be supported? The new frontiers of entrepreneurial support), are asked to:

• submit a full paper in RFG format,
• upload the manuscript before 5 November 2026 on the journal’s website: https://www.jle.com/fr/revues/rfg/espace_auteur,
• mention in the cover letter the title of the special issue.

All manuscripts must comply with the RFG submission guidelines and will undergo double-blind review in accordance with the journal’s standards.