Virginie Lefebvre

Social capital and knowledge sharing performance of learning networks

Formalized coordination mechanisms help to develop both social interaction and trust.Social interaction is important for the development of cognitive social capital.Social interaction and cognitive social capital promote knowledge sharing in networks.Network level performance assessment should adopt both firm and network perspectives. The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the relationship between the social capital accumulated among network members and the performance of learning networks in terms of their ability to enhance knowledge sharing among network members. A network level perspective guided the sampling strategy adopted for this survey involving 150 members of 16 European learning networks. Hierarchical multiple regression and structural equation modelling were employed to investigate the inter-relationships between dimensions of social capital and knowledge sharing in learning networks. The results reveal that social interaction and cognitive social capital are positively and significantly related to knowledge sharing in learning networks. Social interaction is also shown to play an important role in the development of shared vision and shared language (i.e. cognitive social capital) in learning networks. This paper sheds further light on the inter-relationships between different dimensions of social capital from a network (rather than firm) level perspective, and contributes to emerging theory on the antecedents to, and assessment of, performance in learning network entities.

External sources for innovation in food SMEs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role that different external sources of knowledge play in product, process, market and organizational innovations in food SMEs. Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on a web-survey of 214 food European SMEs. Binary logistic regression models were utilized for data analysis. Findings – The findings support the recent studies that suggest that the introduction of different types of innovation is associated with different types of source of knowledge. They indicate that collaboration with customers matter for product innovations in food SMEs while collaboration with competitors is more important for organizational innovations in this type of firm. In addition, collaboration with science base actors does not appear relevant to innovation in food SMEs, supporting previous works that highlight the predominant role of market base actors in innovation in this type of firm. Research limitations/implications – In line with previous research on innov...

The importance of networks for knowledge exchange and innovation in the food industry

Abstract: The various types of knowledge flows that are important in the various types of innovations are investigated using three case studies on networks in the Flemish food sector. Knowledge flows in networks are shown to depend on various types of ties, context-dependent variables, and the intermediation functions of the network, i.e. demand articulation, network formation and innovation process management.