The Added Value of Co-Working Spaces in the Area of Business Development Support: Encouraging Peer Networks

This paper analyzes how to enhance the effectiveness of business development support, such as incubators, in order to develop entrepreneurs’ social skills. To do so, it looks at the functioning and the impacts of a co-working space: La Muse in Geneva (Switzerland). It describes the “ingredients” of this type of organization that result in the management of a community of entrepreneurs enabling the emergence of the “peer network effect” so called in this paper. This effect generates positive impacts on the entrepreneurs also analyzed in the paper. It stimulates the development of their abilities and their level of engagement in their project, as well as the opportunity to affect its development through interaction without significant start-up capital. We present a discussion of the prospects for encouraging peer-support in more classical business contexts.