Et si l’échec renforçait la légitimité ? Le cas singulier du capital-risqueur

This article raises the question of the links between failure and legitimacy in the professional practice. We choose to focus on the venture capitalists because failures are recurrent in their practice. Our methodology is qualitative (semi structured-interviews with French venture capitalists). We show that failure is a matter of perception. The main professional practice of this profession – syndication – is the place where professional legitimacy is enhanced, maintained or damaged. Our results show that legitimacy is not necessarily affected by failure. It depends on the perception of failure and on the perceived responsibility of the actor in the failure.