Performance gains and losses from network centrality in cluster located firms: a longitudinal study

This paper develops and tests theoretically derived arguments on the performance trade-offs that arise when firms located inside geographical clusters broaden their cluster networks and increase their centrality. Using three-year longitudinal data gathered on a sample of 89 small media firms located in a geographical cluster of Northern Italy, we model growth in revenues and in employees as a function of their centrality in different types of networks. We find an inverted U-shaped effect of centrality across all types of networks. We also find strong evidence of negative interactivity between network types in predicting sales and employee growth. This result not only concurs with the view that centrality brings tangible and intangible benefits, but also provides empirical support for the contention that centrality fosters dispositions and disturbances that undermine performance

Creativity in Social Networks: A Core-Periphery Perspectiv

Building on socio-structural explanations, this article elaborates on the tension between individual actors’ positions along the core-periphery continuum of the social field and their ability to gain legitimacy for their creative work. Peripheral actors are less constrained by the field’s normative pressures and free to experiment with un- conventional ideas and solutions, but they may struggle to mobilize attention and harness the symbolic and material resources needed to legitimate their work. By contrast, core players are more effective at leveraging networks to build consensus, but they often exhibit a propensity toward more incremental work due to their higher levels of assimilation into the conventions of the field. To resolve this tension this article advances a strategy which we term optimal network structuration strategy . This strategy implies forming ties that link the two ends of the core-periphery spectrum, in the attempt to increase the likelihood of generating novelty while also enhancing the ability to make such novelty manifest and visible to the field. The theoretical and managerial implications are discussed

Anchor entrepreneurship and industry catalysis: The rise of the Italian Biomedical Valley

Accounting for the rise of the medical device industry in the Emilia-Romagna town of Mirandola from a once depressed agricultural area in 1962 to a world-manufacturing center for dialysis equipment and disposable plastic medical devices, requires in large measure mapping the methods of the local entrepreneur who spearheaded its development. Reworking Agrawal and Cockburn's anchor-tenant hypothesis highlighting the role of large organizations in fostering agglomerations, this paper privileges the Schumpeterian entrepreneur as the dynamic force driving new industrial formations. This anchor-entrepreneur with no prior experience in manufacturing medical devices and without any public financing or large private backers founded six firms. Each of these would be sold off fairly quickly to a different large multinational corporation. Placing the anchor-entrepreneur at the center stage advances understanding of early industry evolution, spelling out how first-mover pioneers shape the environment to establish the first markets needed to attract new resources and capabilities. Underpinning our argument are 61 fine-grain interviews with key medical device industry informants in addition to extensive secondary sources and historical records. We draw on this material to induce a stylized model of anchor-entrepreneurship and industry catalysis that rests on three generative processes: bricolage, second-hand imprinting and beaconing

Anchor entrepreneurship and industry catalysis: The rise of the Italian Biomedical Valley

Accounting for the rise of the medical device industry in the Emilia-Romagna town of Mirandola from a once depressed agricultural area in 1962 to a world-manufacturing center for dialysis equipment and disposable plastic medical devices, requires in large measure mapping the methods of the local entrepreneur who spearheaded its development. Reworking Agrawal and Cockburn's anchor-tenant hypothesis highlighting the role of large organizations in fostering agglomerations, this paper privileges the Schumpeterian entrepreneur as the dynamic force driving new industrial formations. This anchor-entrepreneur with no prior experience in manufacturing medical devices and without any public financing or large private backers founded six firms. Each of these would be sold off fairly quickly to a different large multinational corporation. Placing the anchor-entrepreneur at the center stage advances understanding of early industry evolution, spelling out how first-mover pioneers shape the environment to establish the first markets needed to attract new resources and capabilities. Underpinning our argument are 61 fine-grain interviews with key medical device industry informants in addition to extensive secondary sources and historical records. We draw on this material to induce a stylized model of anchor-entrepreneurship and industry catalysis that rests on three generative processes: bricolage, second-hand imprinting and beaconing

Graphene-mediated exchange coupling between a molecular spin and magnetic substrates

Using first-principles calculations we demonstrate sizable exchange coupling between a magnetic molecule and a magnetic substrate via a graphene layer. As a model system we consider cobaltocene (CoCp2) adsorbed on graphene deposited on Ni(111). We find that the magnetic coupling is antiferromagnetic and is influenced by the molecule structure, the adsorption geometry, and the stacking of graphene on the substrate. We show how the coupling can be tuned by the intercalation of a magnetic monolayer, such as Fe or Co, between graphene and Ni(111). We identify the leading mechanism responsible for the coupling to be the spatial and energy matching of the frontier orbitals of CoCp2 and graphene close to the Fermi level. Graphene plays the role of an electronic decoupling layer while allowing effective spin communication between molecule and substrate