Abstract
Supporting networks within and between entrepreneurial companies to facilitate knowledge and innovation diffusion and to drive industrial change and economic growth are important for all countries. In less developed countries, despite a higher proportion of necessity based entrepreneurial firms relative to opportunity based entrepreneurial firms, policy tends to support the latter, leaving the former more vulnerable and exposed. In this paper, we explore the emergent role that individual behavior and networks of necessity-based and opportunity-based firms have in climbing the technological ladder and creating an economy and society capable of undertaking complex activities and adding value. We develop and simulate a model based on network theory, the exploitation and exploration of knowledge and individual and team motivations, and draw conclusions from the analysis about how technological diffusion and growth can stem from increased collaboration of necessity-based and opportunity-based firms within strong inter-firm networks. Our paper contributes to the current debate on the need for social and productive technological change in less developed countries and calls for increased collaboration between the two types of entrepreneurial firms: by generating organizational capabilities to build dense networks of cohesion, trust and inclusiveness, necessity-based firms can be integrated into the networks of opportunity-based firms, providing the conditions to stimulate innovation and growth.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Anderson, P., & Tushman, M. L. (1990). Technological discontinuities and dominant designs. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35(4), 604–633.
Bessant, J., & Tidd, J. (2007). Innovation and entrepreneurship. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Best, M. (2001). The new competitive advantage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bowles, Samuel y Herbert Gintis. (2004). Persistent Parochialism: Trust and Exclusion in Ethnic Networks. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 55, 1–23.
Chesbrough, H. (2003). Open innovation: the new imperative for creating and profiting from technology. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Currie, L. (1974). The ‘leading sector’ model of growth in developing countries. Journal of Economic Studies, 1, 1–16.
Currie, L. (1981). Allyn young and the development of growth theory. Journal of Economic Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) (2007), Global Report. Niels Bosma, Kent Jones, Erkko Autio and Jonathan Levie. Babson College, MA, London Business School, and Global Entrepreneurship Research Consortium (GERA). Disponible en: http://www.gemconsortium.org/download/1202244343538/GEM_2007_Executive_Report.pdf.
Currie, L. (1997). Implications of an endogenous theory of growth in Allyn Young’s macroeconomic concept of increasing returns. History of Political Economy, 29(3), 413–443.
Deutsch, M. (1973). The resolution of conflict. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). (2007). Global Report. Niels Bosma, Kent Jones, Erkko Autio & Jonathan Levie. Babson College, MA., London Business School, and Global Entrepreneurship Research Consortium (GERA). Available at: http://www.gemconsortium.org/download/1202244343538/GEM_2007_Executive_Report.pdf.
Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1360–1380.
Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic action and social structure: the problem of embeddedness. American Journal of Sociology, 91, 481–510.
Grebel, T., Pyka, A., & Hanusch, H. (2004). An evolutionary approach to the theory of entrepreneurship. In J. Foster & W. Holzl (Eds.), Applied evolutionary economics and complex systems. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Hernandez, I. (2008). Empresa, innovación y desarrollo. Bogotá: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.
Hirschman, A. (1958). The strategy of economic development (rev.th ed.). US: Westview Press Inc.
Lazaric, N., & Raybaut, A. (2005). Knowledge, hierarchy and the selection of routines: an interpretative model with group interactions. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 15, 393–421.
Leonard-Barton, D. (1997). Wellsprings of knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Press.
Lewis, W. A. (1954). Economic development with unlimited supplies of labour. The Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, 22, 139–191.
Lewis, W. A. (1955). The theory of economic growth. London: Allen and Unwin.
Lundvall, B. A. (1988). Innovation as an interactive process: from user-producer interaction to the national system of innovation. In G. Dosi, C. Freeman, R. Nelson, G. Silverberg, & L. Soete (Eds.), Technical change and economic theory. London: Pinter.
Nelson, R. R., & Pack, H. (1999). The asian miracle and modern growth theory. Economic Journal, 109(July), 416–436.
Nooteboom, B. (2000). Learning and innovation in organizations and economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nooteboom, B. (2002). Learning and innovation in organizations and economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Powell, W. W., & Grodal, S. (2005). Networks of innovators. In J. Fagerberg, D. Mowery & R.R. Nelson (Eds.), Oxford handbook of innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Prahalad, C. K. (2005). La oportunidad de negocios en la base de la pirámide. Buenos Aires: Norma.
Rothwell, R. (1977). The characteristics of successful innovators and technically progressive firms. R&D Management, 7(3), 191–541.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The theory of economic development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Simon, H. A. (1991a). Non-monotonic reasoning and causation. Cognitive Science, 15(2), 293–300.
Simon, H. A. (1991b). Bounded rationality and organizational learning. Organization Science, 2(1), 125–134. Special Issue: Organizational Learning: Papers in Honor of (and by) James, G. March. (1991).
Stephenson, K. (2005). A quantum theory of trust. New York: Prentice Hall.
Tidd, J., & Bessant, J. (2009). Managing innovation, John Wiley & Sons.
Utterback, J. (1994). Mastering the dynamics of innovation: how companies can seize opportunities in the face of technological change. Harvard: Harvard Business School Press.
Volterra, V. (1931). Variations and fluctuations of the number of individuals in animal species living together. In R. N. Chapman (Ed.), Animal ecology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratising innovation. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Witt, U. (1999). Do entrepreneurs need firms? A contribution to a missing chapter in Austrian economics. Review of Austrian Economics, 11, 99–109.
Wong, A., & Yu, Z-Y. (2004). Organizational partnerships in China: self-interest, goal interdependence, and opportunism. Working Paper. Hong Kong: Department of Management, Lingnan University, March.
Ackowledgement
We would like to thank research assistants Andres Salamanca, Diana Velásquez and Clara Yaneth Puentes for their invaluable support in the Predator-Prey Model and Model Simulations
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Mathematical Appendix
Mathematical Appendix
1.1 Terminology
-
t : time measured in hours
-
x : level of collaboration in the instant t (time)
-
y : level of opportunism in the instant t (time)
-
\( {A_x} \): rate of growth of the collaboration in time t
-
\( {A_y} \): rate of growth of the opportunism in time t
-
\( {A_{{xy}}} \): probability that the opportunism obtain the collaboration’ information
-
\( {A_{{yx}}} \): probability that the collaboration allow the opportunism to obtain information
-
\( {\Omega_t} \): matrix of an individual’s contacts z in the time t
-
I : new information
-
F : filtered information
-
i = 1, 2, 3…, N
-
N: individuals’ number in the company
-
\( {\alpha_{{{i_t}}}}^{*}\!: \) the organizational practice of de agent i adapted to the new knowledge acquired in the time t
-
σ: percentage of contacts in the firm \( \sigma = \frac{1}{N}\sum\limits_{{i = 1}}^N {{\xi_i}} \) and, \( {\xi_i} = \frac{{{L_i}}}{{N - 1}} \), \( {L_i} = \sum\limits_{{j = 1}}^N {{l_{{ij}}}} \)
-
\( {l_{{ij}}} \): contact between the agent i with j, component ij of the matrix Ω t
-
\( {{\hbox{k}}_{{{i_t}}}} \): knowledge of the agent i in the time t
-
\( {\mu_{{{i_t}}}} \): weight of knowledge of the agent i in the time t
$$ {\mu_{{{i_t}}}} = \frac{{{k_{{{i_t}}}}}}{{\sum\nolimits_{{i = 1}}^N {{k_{{{i_t}}}}} }} $$ -
\( {\theta_{{{i_t}}}} \): the knowledge acquired by the agent i, because of the interaction with other individuals in the instant t
-
\( {\lambda_{{{i_t}}}} \): the cognitive dimension of the agent i in the time t
$$ {\lambda_{{{i_t}}}} = {\mu_{{{i_t}}}} + {\xi_{{{i_t}}}} $$
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hernandez, I., Dewick, P. (2011). Social Entrepreneurship for the Generation of Networking Capabilities. In: Pyka, A., Derengowski Fonseca, M. (eds) Catching Up, Spillovers and Innovation Networks in a Schumpeterian Perspective. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15886-5_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-15886-5_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-15885-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-15886-5
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)