Costly Ties: Social Capital as a Retardant of Network-Level Entrepreneurial Orientation

Challenging social capital research, we argue that network top management teams (TMTs) established to support entrepreneurship in strategic multipartner networks should be careful in developing ties to outside organizations and networks. We suggest that such ties limit the network TMT's ability to engage in the strategy-making processes needed to facilitate entrepreneurial orientation on a network level. Based on five-year panel data from 53 formalized networks of small and medium-sized enterprises, we demonstrate that homogenous and highly educated network TMTs can compensate the negative effects of TMT ties to other organizations, but not the negative effects of interlocking directorates.