Résumé
To foster innovation in Sub-Saharan African countries, both researchers and practitioners recognise the importance of coordination between providers of innovation support services, whose efficiency depends on each other's activities. However, collaboration may be difficult to initiate and maintain, which leads service ecosystems to having trouble to emerge or declining rapidly. These difficulties can be related to problems in implementing the social capital needed between the different member organisations of the ecosystem. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the hub organisation orchestrates the development of social capital of an Innovation Support Services Ecosystem (ISSE) to allow its emergence and functioning in the agricultural sector in the Global South. A case study analysis was conducted in three countries of Sub-Saharan Africa. We propose an integrative analytical framework of ISSE emergence combining the theories of orchestration of ecosystems and social capital. Thirteen elements of social capital have been underlined as crucial contributors to the emergence of ISSEs. While most of these elements have already been described in social capital literature, we propose adjustments to the three dimensions of social capital. We also disentangle the most crucial elements of social capital along the emergence path.