Come together: the influence of social capital on the performance assessment of incubated clean-tech start-ups

Social capital is important for technology-based startups to acquire critical resources, which in turn can increase their performance. Given its importance during the early phases of development, incubation programs that... [ view full abstract ]

Social capital is important for technology-based startups to acquire critical resources, which in turn can increase their performance. Given its importance during the early phases of development, incubation programs that support these start-ups focus heavily on social capital.
However, while previous studies explore the relationship between social capital and performance, it is largely unknown if and how various dimensions of social capital impact different dimensions of performance of startups. In addition, in the context of incubation programmes there is room for better understanding how these programmes in turn affect different dimensions of social capital.
In this study, the dimensions of social capital include cognitive, organizational, social, institutional and geographical proximity. We use LinkedIn data to assess the relationships of the members of a start-up team. Performance indicators include different dimensions of assessed performance and objective performance. The performance data comes from a large European clean-tech incubation programme.
Our study shows if and how the different dimensions of social capital influences different performance dimensions of startups. It also shows which forms of social capital can be strengthened through incubation programmes. The results from this study are relevant for incubation managers and high-tech entrepreneurs.