Complexity and self-organization within collective entrepreneurship : an analysis of a local music scene
The purpose of this paper is to propose a different way of understanding the entrepreneurial process than its conception as an individualist phenomenon. It describes a kind of collective entrepreneurship that aims at building a context for entrepreneurial processes (and not a venture creation or an innovative activity). It analyzes the emergence of a local music scene essentially based on amateur volunteer activities. Drawing on the perspective of entrepreneuring (Steyaert, 2007) and the territorial approach in entrepreneurship (Julien, 2005), it investigates interactions between actors and phenomena of embeddedness to answer the following questions : how is such a context formed ? What does it create ? What is its organizational process ? The results refutes a causal and linear vision of the entrepreneurial process, an approach which does not allow us to understand the specific phenomena studied in this case. Our study reveals a collective action that is both self-organized and emergent. The interest of the results is thus in looking for a better understanding of the complexity and creativity inherent in entrepreneurship.