Space-related antecedents of social capital: some empirical inquiries about the creation of new firms

Abstract

This paper analyzes the spatial aspects of social capital creation between co-localised start-ups and customers, aiming to explain the factors which may influence the diffusion of inter-organizational social networks inside industrial clusters. We suppose that local social capital is not a public good, but its creation depends both on proximity. between actors and on a sense of affiliation of an entrepreneur to the cluster. While the embeddedness of a start-up inside a cluster has a positive influence on the relational and cognitive dimensions of social capital, it negatively influences the structural dimension. Implications and future lines of research are discussed.