Social networks matter in the innovation processes of young and small firms, since ‘innovation does not exist in a vacuum (Van De Ven, 1986: 601).’ The contacts a firm has could both generate advantages for further innovation and growth, and disadvantages leading to inertia and stagnation. In the first case the existing social network or the new business contact provides opportunities furthering eventual success, in the second case, the existing network or the new business contacts turns out to have a constraining or even detrimental effect on performance. The search and use of social capital is driven by goal-specificity: it only includes those ties that help the actor in the attainment of particular goals. Most of the research so far has been deliberately or unwillingly one-sided, by for instance only looking at entrepreneurial firms in dynamic industries (or more specifically, start-ups in the high-tech industries). Or selective attention has been paid to either the internal sources or the external contacts to trigger inn
