Small Worlds Research

Research Questions
In our research project we address the following research questions:

• How can companies boost innovation using small worlds?
• How can interactive learning and knowledge transfer in small worlds be stimulated in such a way that the innovative performance of individual companies on such campuses will accelerate?
• To what extent does diversity of firms in small worlds lead to higher levels of creativity and increased innovative performance?
• What business models are most effective in establishing sustainable innovation of companies inside small world networks vis-à-vis companies outside these campuses?

Diversity versus redundancy
The main advantage of co-located open communities, where new firms enter or start-up continuously, is that diversity of firms will lead to new combinations and ideas, ultimately leading to more innovative products and services. In contrast, co-location may also come with disadvantages of narrowing the scope of new ideas, for instance caused by “group think” or social closure when firms interact with the same partners over longer periods in time. We will research how corporate campuses can be managed in such a way that the network is continuously renewed, sufficiently diverse members are attracted to the open corporate campus and relations with off-campus research partner are established and maintained.

Macro versus micro perspective on co-location
Empirical research in the field of co-location typically applies a macro perspective on the policies used to grow the campus and are rather descriptive on the history and members of the clusters, such as the many case studies on Silicon Valley. Usually, a study of the actual interactions and the dynamics of the interactions over time are not included. Case study evidence, typically based on rich description of single occurences, specifically in economic geography and innovation management literature typically remains narrative and often provides “fuzzy” evidence of the merits of co-location. This “lack of evidence” of the benefits of co-location calls for more rigorous empirical micro-level research on the merits of co-location in stimulating creativity, knowledge sharing and innovative performance.

Actual versus perceived benefits of co-location
What most of the studies on co-location, fail to establish is whether perceived benefits actually occur and help firms inside a cluster in becoming more creative and innovative. Sadowski, Dittrich & Duysters (2003) have shown that, in cases where science parks are set-up to reap benefits of interaction between universities, small firms and large MNEs, actual interaction may not occur. Moreover, often less innovative firms, that are e.g. offering auxiliary services, benefit most from co-location. In our research, we will perform longitudinal analyses of open corporate campuses to establish to what extent the innovative performance of the campus increases over time and increased compare to the period before companies co-located. This will provides us with new insights on the variables determining the success (or failure) of the innovative performance of open corporate campuses.