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The purpose of this study is to discuss how ethnicity and gender influence high-tech entrepreneurship in the Cambridge cluster emphasizing homophily and how and why bridging and bonding ties are created in moving individuals from the periphery to cross the threshold into acceptance.

The authors present findings on the micro-dynamics of ethnicity and gender in high-tech entrepreneurship underpinned by homophily. The authors discuss how ethnicity and gender influence who enters and stays in high-tech entrepreneurship university spinouts. Through an entrepreneurial narrative qualitative approach, the authors explore how and why bridging and bonding ties may be created and the challenges for those at the periphery to cross the threshold into acceptance. The study adopts an entrepreneurial narrative qualitative approach using interviews with individuals associated with the Cambridge cluster.

The authors add to the entrepreneurship literature by responding to the call for multiplexity within homophily, and the research indicates that homophily strongly influences who enters and who leaves the cluster based on bridging and bonding ties. The findings address the need for more focused understanding of entrepreneurial clusters and how mechanisms can be developed to create an environment to nurture both bridging and bonding ties. It is possible for an entrepreneurial cluster to be perceived as attractive and thriving while being homophilous. Ethnic individuals and women continue to struggle to gain acceptance in the Cambridge cluster.

Interviews were conducted by one person – an ethnic minority female – for continuity of all interviews. Yet as many of the participants were not minorities, it is possible that an interviewer who was not an ethnic minority may have elicited different narratives.

The study adds to the entrepreneurship literature by focusing on multiplexity within homophily in examining the dynamics of homophily in the context of the Cambridge cluster and the significance of nurturing bridging and bonding ties. The research comments on implications for practice among three interlinked but autonomous groups: first, the individual entrepreneurs; second, the networks she/he belongs to; third, the university as both fertile ground for entrepreneurship and an educational institution where entrepreneurship education is engaged in for encouraging and supporting spinouts.

The purpose of this article is to provide an interview with Shima Barakat.

The interview is conducted by an independent interviewer.

Shima Barakat is research and teaching fellow at the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, where she specializes in sustainability, gender and ethnicity, and the role of creativity in business.

The interview provides useful information from a leading researcher.

Altmetrics is a complementary method in scientometrics for evaluating the performance of individuals, organizations, institutions and countries in social media. Due to the large volume of data related to the interactions in science, technology and innovation, there is no choice but to develop and implement accurate models for analysis and decision making. The Quadruple Helix Model examines the scientific outcomes in four spaces of innovation, knowledge, consensus and government with a distinctive attention to the “innovation space”. In other words, it aims to find the connection between the academic space and other sectors of a society (public, media and government) to see if scientific outputs respond appropriately to their needs.

The present paper studied the impact of health-related researches in D8 countries) including Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt and Nigeria) using the Altmetrics scores of their indexed journal in the Web of Science (WOS). The results demonstrated distribution of interactions of the mentioned four spaces in health science researches in terms of social media, geographical distribution and theme for D8 countries. This was conducted using content analysis, scientometric and altmetric indicators in the WOS and Altmetrics.com databases.

In D8 countries, more interaction has taken place in the knowledge and innovation spaces; however, there exist Quadruple imbalances in these countries. Moreover, some interactions have been observed in all social networks, displaying that users consider health topics in D8 countries, and clinical sciences has gotten more interaction in all the four spaces.

The application of this model using altmetrics data with current approach has been conducted for the first time.