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Entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms

Start-up firms in high-tech sectors normally engage in networking to overcome their lack of resources, knowledge, and competence constraints. A newly established firm’s network can provide a source of social capital, which may enhance its growth prospects. In this study, 241 new technology-based fir...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Löfsten, Hans, Isaksson, Anders, Rannikko, Heikki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9789921/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36588585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10961-022-09988-0
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author Löfsten, Hans
Isaksson, Anders
Rannikko, Heikki
author_facet Löfsten, Hans
Isaksson, Anders
Rannikko, Heikki
author_sort Löfsten, Hans
collection PubMed
description Start-up firms in high-tech sectors normally engage in networking to overcome their lack of resources, knowledge, and competence constraints. A newly established firm’s network can provide a source of social capital, which may enhance its growth prospects. In this study, 241 new technology-based firms (NTBFs) in Sweden are studied during their early formative years to investigate how entrepreneurial networks and the geographical proximity to actors in these networks affect the early performance of these firms in terms of growth. Three underlying factors are identified in the analysis: geographical proximity and professional and consultative networks. This study finds that professional networks have a positive and significant effect on NTBFs’ growth, which indicate that utilizing these networks benefit the growth of both young and growing firms. NTBFs in initial stages can acquire business opportunities by constructing professional networks. In addition, several formal links positively affect growth, such as regional business partners, incubator networks, and links to universities.
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spelling pubmed-97899212022-12-27 Entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms Löfsten, Hans Isaksson, Anders Rannikko, Heikki J Technol Transf Article Start-up firms in high-tech sectors normally engage in networking to overcome their lack of resources, knowledge, and competence constraints. A newly established firm’s network can provide a source of social capital, which may enhance its growth prospects. In this study, 241 new technology-based firms (NTBFs) in Sweden are studied during their early formative years to investigate how entrepreneurial networks and the geographical proximity to actors in these networks affect the early performance of these firms in terms of growth. Three underlying factors are identified in the analysis: geographical proximity and professional and consultative networks. This study finds that professional networks have a positive and significant effect on NTBFs’ growth, which indicate that utilizing these networks benefit the growth of both young and growing firms. NTBFs in initial stages can acquire business opportunities by constructing professional networks. In addition, several formal links positively affect growth, such as regional business partners, incubator networks, and links to universities. Springer US 2022-12-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9789921/ /pubmed/36588585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10961-022-09988-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Löfsten, Hans
Isaksson, Anders
Rannikko, Heikki
Entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms
title Entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms
title_full Entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms
title_fullStr Entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms
title_full_unstemmed Entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms
title_short Entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms
title_sort entrepreneurial networks, geographical proximity, and their relationship to firm growth: a study of 241 small high-tech firms
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9789921/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36588585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10961-022-09988-0
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