Guillaume Dumont
Assistant Professor – OCE Research Center and Social Entrepreneurship


From studying professional rock climbers in the Yosemite National Park to working alongside social entrepreneurs in Barcelona, I am an anthropologist investigating how people socially construct values and worth. Morespecifically, I look at how people create things at work and what makes these things valuable. Ethnographic in nature, my work provides an empirically grounded understanding of worth construction in organizational and entrepreneurial processes. My last research entailed an 18-months long ethnography at a business accelerator and impact investment fund supporting social entrepreneurs in Barcelona. I am currently turning these results into journal articles and a second book using the case of social entrepreneurship to explain how entrepreneurs, impact investors, and corporations collaborate to elaborate meaningful expectations of future social and economic value creation. In tandem, I have designed and implemented several initiatives and educational activities based on research results and directed at entrepreneurs, corporations, and impact investors. They include teaching and mentoring entrepreneurs in acceleration programs, designing hands-on workshops for corporations to improve their collaboration with start-ups, or helping investment units to access H2020 funding schemes for social enterprises finance.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Book
Dumont G, (2018) Grimpeur professionnel. Le travail créateur sur le marché du sponsoring. Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Ehess).
Journal articles
RESEARCH TOPICS
Social entrepreneurship, accelerators, impact investors
RESEARCH METHODS
My approach is eminently ethnographic, and my methodological toolkit includes participant observation, interviews, and the use of secondary data, both offline and online.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
emlyon business school webpage