Narrow Results

This study focuses on students who have conceptualized the business idea during their academic studies and created the business venture during or within two years after graduation. The extant literature identifies social networks as a key factor not only for opportunity recognition but also for start-up survival. This study expands the knowledge about the roles of personal networks within the context of student entrepreneurs. By conducting focus group, interviews, and a survey at a top-ranked technological institute of higher learning in India, this study analyzed the role played by the personal networks in facilitating and enabling the creation of a venture by student entrepreneurs. Our study findings indicate that (1) student entrepreneurs expect ten potential roles from their personal networks, (2) the hierarchy of these roles indicates the triggering impact of business networking with a final outcome of motivational support, and (3) business networking, venture financing and the founding team formation are the most important roles in the actual start-up phase.

This study reveals that the strength of ties among academic and corporate researchers who are subject to institutional distance depends on the triggers for tie formation through trust. As strong ties are suitable for the exchange of complex knowledge, they are expected to contribute to knowledge transfer and subsequent innovative knowledge creation. With data from 508 researchers in Japan, this study reveals that the most common trigger is meeting at academic conferences, but ties formed through this trigger are weak. In contrast, ties formed during school days or past work are long-lasting strong ties, and introductions by peer researchers form strong ties from the short-term perspective. Interestingly, ties formed through introductions by industry–academia intermediary organisations are found to be strong in the short term but weak in the long term. Based on these results, this study suggests management and policy that contribute to the formation of strong ties.