Were entrepreneurs who do a lot of networking more successful in terms of profit or market share?
I didn’t see a direct impact on those things, but those who do a lot of networking were more likely to be innovative and to have a large percentage of new products. How did you define and measure networking? External social capital means the extent to which firms go outside of their walls to talk to people—inside or outside of their industry—who they think have a valuable opinion. So entrepreneurs with high external social capital do a number of things, from business round table groups to industry associations, to talking to their competitors and suppliers, and even going out beyond their industry and talking to opinion leaders in other areas. I think there’s a trend where firms are doing this more and more as they recognize you can’t depend on the group-think mentality inside your company. After all, entrepreneurs tend to hire people who think the same way they do and have the same perspective. That might be particularly true in small companies, where there are fewer employees, perhap
