Networking and entrepreneurship in place

Abstract

Any discourse on networking and entrepreneurship must be positioned in the ongoing debate on each concept. Over the last decades network analysis has turned from a statistical technique for mapping complex social structures to a way of inquiring into the general interrelatedness and social embedding of economic activity. Networks as a resource have in the academic discourse changed from something that disadvantaged people need as a support structure to a generic mode to increase the competitive strength and flexibility of firms and organizations by way of collaboration. Now at the beginning of the new millennium networks as antecedents and containers of social capital are a special concern and networking as process is given priority in scientific inquiries (Parkhe et al., 2006). Entrepre-neurship, in contrast, has changed from being associated with economic change, incremental due to alertness in the market place or radical as an outcome of technological innovation, to creative organizing, as much associated with social as with economic change, cf. e.g., Hjorth et al. (2003); Katz and Steyaert (2004). This perspective on (creative) organizing reflects a relational view, i.e., mans more concern for what happens between people and organizations than inside them © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.