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Purpose – This study explores subsidiaries' local network embeddedness and how it contributes to localised subsidiary innovation output from a social network perspective. In particular, we are interested in analysing the consequences of local network density, diversity and, subsidiaries' network position on its innovation outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach – Data are derived from a longitudinal quantitative study of the entire R&D network within one of the largest life science cluster in Germany, the ‘BioRegion Rhein-Neckar-Dreieck’.

Findings – Our findings indicate that the size (density) of the local network has an inverted U-shaped effect on the innovation outcomes of MNC subsidiaries. Our findings further indicate that a strong brokerage position in the local network has a significant positive influence on the innovation output while a position in the core of the network has a significant negative effect on the innovation output.

Research implications – Our results shed new light on the relationship between local embeddedness, brokerage, the danger of overembeddedness and innovation output of MNC subsidiaries.

The purpose of this paper is to understand the relationship between foreign direct investment (FDI) and cities and how the relationship between multinational enterprise (MNEs) and local firms facilitates regional cleantech innovation.

Using a combination of social network analysis, regression analysis and interview analysis, the authors map and analyze a cleantech cluster to investigate the relationship between MNEs and local firms and the resulting effects on cleantech innovation.

The findings of the paper indicate that FDI plays a crucial role in cities and their local clusters by acting as a broker between a diverse set of actors: firms, institutions, universities, financial and other intermediaries. Additionally, connectedness to MNEs improves local firms’ innovation.

This study is not free of limitations, mainly, because of the aspects that the analysis is based on one city and one cleantech hub. Further research could verify whether the findings of this paper hold in other cities and industries.

The findings, elucidating the connection between MNEs and local firms, as well as MNEs being important brokers in the local system, and the resulting impact, will help policymakers to take appropriate actions and support the local cleantech innovation. It is important to not only attract high-quality FDI into local clusters, but also to create and support collaborations between foreign firms and local actors, because colocation does not automatically leads to positive spillovers and a lot depends on how MNEs are integrated into the local milieu.

The present paper argues that FDI plays an important role in local cleantech innovation and it is important to integrate foreign firms in local social networks.

The authors analyze FDI patterns in an emerging industry at the city and local cluster level using a unique database containing the information on relationships between MNEs and local firms, as well as interview data.

This paper aims to study the role of the focal firm in local communities. In particular, it aims at analyzing such firms’ contribution to innovation, proposing a classification of the interactions and role systems that contribute to determining the innovational impact of focal firms.

This paper presents a concept-based study. The paper starts with a review of the literature to frame the concepts of local network and focal firm. Two key concepts, related to that of interaction, are then discussed: teaching and learning.

The paper proposes a taxonomy of the interactions and the roles systems that the focal firm can establish. The status of focal actor for innovation in a network stems, not from an “a priori” central strategic role on which the actor builds its interactions, but “a posteriori”, from the actor’s previously recognized roles in interactions on which network innovation is based. The local system may or may not be present in the interaction set of the business network. The interactions and roles systems define the type of local system.

Research implications regard three main aspects: the different roles in the interactions; the types of actors in the local system; and the types of local systems involved in the processes of innovation.

The paper furnishes an original interpretation by focusing on focal firms as leaders in the innovation process, in the attempt to reconcile the “macro” perspective of local systems with the “micro” perspective of the individual firm.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how some born global firms can leverage the rich social capital in their local (home country) horizontal network for accelerated international market entry and growth. Horizontal networks warrant separate attention from their vertical counterparts, which, along with those focussed on external international contexts, dominate most network studies in the realm of born global research.

The study utilises a multi-level qualitative approach in the study of a multi-firm population of animators in Ireland that, due to the small domestic market for their product, needed to pursue global customers from inception. The case study domain was purposely selected as a critical exemplar of a local horizontal network operating in a highly globalised industry. The authors collected data through in-depth interviews with 16 company founders. This primary interview data were complemented by interviews with staff at the apposite industry association and triangulated with secondary data on the local and global industry conditions, members’ international successes and awards.

The results demonstrate how active membership of a local horizontal network can be leveraged for the acquisition of international market knowledge and customers for born global ventures. This arises from the sharing of collective market knowledge and communal global customer information within the network to mutual benefit.

Although limited by the specific conditions in this highly globalised, non-competitive industry context, this study is unique in that it finds that cooperative interpersonal and inter-firm relationships embedded in a local horizontal social network, and mediated in part by an institutional support actor, emerge as important levers for a born global’s accelerated acquisition of foreign market knowledge and of global customers.

This paper aims to explore local social value creation by entrepreneurs located in residential neighborhoods, what drives their behavior and the influence of their local social networks therein, both as a direct effect and through fostering local embeddedness.

In-depth interviews are conducted with 18 neighborhood-based entrepreneurs in the Netherlands to explore whether these entrepreneurs are active in local social value creation and the different drivers of their behavior in that regard (personality, organizational, contextual and issue characteristics) in relation to their local social networks. The research neighborhoods are selected based on social cohesion and collective efficacy scores.

Most interviewees are active in social value creation. Personality characteristics are the main drivers of local social value creation. Local social networks have a direct, indirect and moderating effect, but are not prerequisites for local social value creation to occur. Local embeddedness through emotional attachment to the neighborhood also drives local social value creation.

The findings suggest that neighborhood-based entrepreneurship is a source of local social value, indicating the need for additional and large-scale quantitative research on this type of entrepreneurial activity.

The findings of this study can motivate policymakers to promote entrepreneurship in neighborhoods as a means of stimulating bottom-up local social value creation.

This study contributes to the debate on the social value of entrepreneurship and considers the understudied group of neighborhood-based entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the paper offers a conceptual contribution by focusing on the local social networks as a driver of local social value creation.

Cultural and creative industries (CCIs) have been argued to play an important role in achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs). However, the mechanisms through which CCIs contribute to the attainment of SDGs remain underexplored. In this study, the authors adopt a network perspective to examine how the structure of a local CCI network relates to its local sustainability performance. By examining a database of 210,182 networked firms out of 1.34 million CCI firms across 294 cities in China, the authors conclude that both the scale and the density of a local CCI network improve the city’s performance in terms of attaining SDGs 8–12. The authors discuss the implications of these findings and propose future research avenues in international business.

This chapter reports a study that investigates the link between rural small firms’ social networks and their market diversification strategies in the context of the Internet.

Telephone interviews were conducted with a random sample of 142 Scottish small rural and urban firm owners in May 2012. The purpose of the telephone interviews was to understand how Internet usage impacted on the social networks and market diversification experiences of small rural firms. Analysis of the categorical data was performed using a variety of established methods.

Internet usage for many small Scottish rural firms was facilitating both their market reach and social networks. In addition, small rural firms’ most important social network contacts are highly correlated to their origin of sales, and this can be either locally or extra-locally based.

A positive relationship between Internet usage, social networks and market reach expansion offers support for further developing and improving the Internet infrastructure of rural communities.

Internet usage emerges as a critical tool for augmenting the social networks of Scottish rural small firms, which in turn helps to extend their market reach activities.

The purpose of this paper is to build possible future scenarios for indoor connectivity in a venue such as a university campus and build alternative value network configurations (VNCs) defining different local network deployment options, focused on the Finnish telecom market.

In this paper, Schoemaker’s scenario planning method (Schoemaker, 1995) is used to construct future scenarios and the VNC method of Casey et al. (2010) is used to build alternative VNCs. The paper studies the Aalto University campus network for current end-user data usage demand and the existing technology used in meeting the end-user needs and forecasts the demand for the next five years to understand the need for 5G.

This research concludes that with the provision of local spectrum licenses, there is an opportunity for venue owners to take the role of 5G local operator on the venue premises. Furthermore, it enables venue owners to collaborate with the incumbent mobile network operators (MNOs) in a neutral host model and provide venue-specific connectivity services.

A detailed economic assessment for the network deployment in the campus is considered for future study.

Considering the provision for local spectrum licenses, this paper has taken a unique attempt in identifying the future scenarios for local 5G network operations. It provides a strategic direction for the venue owners in adopting 5G technology and whether to make 5G or buy 5G from MNOs.

Notes how rapid urbanization is transforming the developing world – creating cities, which on the one hand offer opportunities for global economic activity, but on the other hand are beset with serious local civic, economic and social problems. New networks based on information and communication technologies are increasingly being woven into the fabric of these cities supporting the connectedness of powerful groups both within the city and between cities around the world. These flows of global information and communication between powerful groups in the city involved in global economic activity coexist with intense face‐to‐face interactions at the local level. Bangalore in South India presents a major case study of this global/local interaction, being a focal point for software development in the Asian region and globally, but also beset with local problems of civic deficiencies, growing poverty and income inequality. Explores some of the issues which arise as Bangalore serves as a nexus that links global and local networks of exchange. Examines two Bangalore networks which typify global and local duality: the network of software firms located in high technology enclaves in and around the city, and the ostracised network of the slum dwellers of Bangalore, gradually being brought into mainstream discussions of governance in the city. Finds considerable similarities between global networks and local networks and outlines some of these dynamics.