Social representations shape practices. However, very little work mobilizes social representations and entrepreneurship. This research aims to identify and analyze the social representations of entrepreneurial success factors among successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs. To this end, quantitative research was conducted with 246 randomly selected entrepreneurs. A multi-method approach based on prototypical analysis, resampling, and confidence intervals was used. The results show that successful entrepreneurs represent entrepreneurial success factors in terms of faith and organization, while unsuccessful entrepreneurs represent them in terms of resources and the market. These two social representations reveal two opposing actors regarding actors and agents.

Keywords : Social Representations, Entrepreneurs, Success, Failure, Benin.