Entrepreneurship as Networking: Mechanisms, Dynamics, Practices, and Strategies

In the world of business, who you know is usually more important than what you know. While most research highlights the personal characteristics and expertise important to business success, this book demonstrates that networking is the core of entrepreneurship. Both counterintuitive and powerful, this perspective reframes entrepreneurial action by placing networking at the center of the process.

Traditionally, networks have been regarded as facilitators of business, but Tom Elfring, Kim Klyver, and Elco van Burg argue that networking is actually the basis of entrepreneurial action, and conversely, that entrepreneurial action is networking. In developing an "entrepreneurship as networking" model, the book addresses the persistent problems that plague the dominant "individual-opportunity" approach in entrepreneurship. They describe the key dynamics, mechanisms, and practices of entrepreneurship as networking, and point at fruitful networking strategies for entrepreneurs. Thus, the authors provide an integrated and dynamic account of entrepreneurial agency that prioritizes interaction with the surrounding social environment. They also explain what a viable network is for entrepreneurs and how networking activities affect their endeavours. Their perspective sheds new light on the origins of opportunities and how entrepreneurs access and mobilize resources. The approach also explains how entrepreneurs build legitimacy and exploit the networks they work within.

Offering a groundbreaking theory of entrepreneurial action as networking, Entrepreneurship as Networking opens up an entirely new research agenda.

Tom Elfring is Dean of Nijmegen School of Management of Radboud University in the Netherlands and Professor in Strategic Management and Entrepreneurship. Previously he was Professor and Head of the Strategy, International Business and Entrepreneurship group (SIBE) at University of Liverpool Management School and Professor at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He has been visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School, at Mays Business School, University of Texas A&M, at the Aarhus School of Business, at University of Alabama, and at University of Bologna. He has published seven books including Corporate Entrepreneurship and Venturing (2005) and Rethinking Strategy (2001), which won the ERIM Best Book Award. His research has been funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), Royal Academy of Sciences (KNAW), The Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), and European Science Foundation (ESF).

Kim Klyver is Professor in Entrepreneurship at University of Southern Denmark and Adjunct Professor at University of Adelaide. Before becoming a full professor, he held postdoc positions at Swinburne University of Technology (2006) and at Stanford University (2009). He serves on several editorial boards, including the board of Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Journal of Small Business Management, and International Small Business Journal. He has been the principal investigator on several research projects funded by the Danish Research Council and is currently leading the Danish Panel Studies on Entrepreneurial Dynamics (DaPSED). His co-authored textbook Entrepreneurship Theory in Practice - Paradoxes in Play is soon coming in third edition.

Elco van Burg is Professor of Organizational Theory at the School of Business and Economics at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Next to positions in academia, he has been working six years at a social venture in the rural highlands of Papua (Indonesia). His research focuses on processes at the intersection of organization theory and entrepreneurship. His research, has, among others been co-funded by the European Union, the Dutch Space Agency and the European Space Agency (ESA).