Cross-pollinating in the beehive: embracing hybridity at a social entrepreneurship coworking space

How does participating in a coworking space enable entrepreneurs to embrace plural
institutional logics and engage in “hybrid venturing”? To explore this question, our research
draws on a longitudinal study of a French coworking space gathering entrepreneurs who seek
to reconcile social and commercial logics in the context of a socially entrepreneurial project.
As social entrepreneurs generally lack pre-established patterns specific to this “hybrid”
venturing mode, we show that the interactions at the coworking space help them embrace
hybridity through (1) identifying with a community of peer, like-minded entrepreneurs; (2)
collectively learning about and experimenting with this venturing mode, through their own
projects but also through the coworking space as a hybrid venture in itself; and (3) connecting
with and contributing to building the emerging ecosystem around hybrid venturing. The
perception of the coworking experience, however, varies depending on the previous
background of the entrepreneurs and in particular their familiarity with each of the logics at
play. We thus document how, building upon their given ex-ante familiarity with the logics in
presence, entrepreneurs with different backgrounds take the opportunity of interacting in the
coworking space to “hybridize” their profile and, as a consequence, their venture. These
findings contribute to the literatures on hybrid venturing and organizing, coworking spaces, and
social entrepreneurship.