INVs and decoding the three roles of social capital with network closure and structure

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine how the three different roles of social capital, the efficacy, serendipity and liability roles interact with network closure and structure. We decode the interrelation between strong, weak, formal, informal and intermediary ties and the three roles of social capital in the internationalization process of nine high technology INVs in Greece and Scotland. We found that the efficacy role of social capital is mainly associated with strong and formal ties, the serendipity role is related to weak, informal and intermediary ties and finally the liability role is associated with weak and formal ties. We also observed that the efficacious role was the most frequent role, whereas the liability role was the least frequent role.