Tie Formation in Silicon Valley and Berlin: How Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Impact Interorganizational Tie Formation of Innovative Growth Companies

Networks are highly relevant for innovation as well as for entrepreneurship. Especially newly founded, innovative high-growth companies heavily rely on resources from their environment—foremost the respective entrepreneurial ecosystem—to develop innovative technologies. Although extant research showed the importance of personal and interorganizational networks during innovation and entrepreneurship processes, much less is known about how new ventures actually form these important relationships. Innovative growth companies face particular challenges when forming interorganizational ties. Especially during the early founding stages, they need to form interorganizational ties under conditions of high uncertainty and power asymmetry. My qualitative case study compares interorganizational tie formation of innovative start-ups and university spin-offs in Silicon Valley and Berlin. Based on 85 interviews and observations of 26 entrepreneurship events, I show that personal ties can be used in very different ways to form interorganizational ties in the entrepreneurial ecosystems in Silicon Valley and in Berlin. The importance of personal ties for interorganizational tie formation varies between the two entrepreneurial ecosystems. The strength of personal ties influenced by the institutional environment.

Personal Website: www.katharina-scheidgen.com

Publications:

Scheidgen, Katharina (2020): Degrees of Integration: How a Fragmented Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Promotes Different Types of Entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development. Online First.

Scheidgen, Katharina (2019): Social Contexts in Team Formation: Why Do Independent Start-Ups and University Spin-Offs Form Teams Differently? Special Issue: Entrepreneurial Groups: definition, forms, and historic change. Historical Social Research, 44 (4), p. 42-74

Scheidgen, Katharina (2018): Gründen als Modus des Innovierens: Netzwerkbildung von Start-ups und Spin-offs im Innovationsprozess. In: Hergesell, Jannis; Maibaum, Arne; Minnetian, Clelia; Sept, Ariane (editors): Innovationsphänomene. Modi und Effekte der Innovationsgesellschaft.  Springer,  Wiesbaden.

Roth, Philip; Scheidgen, Katharina; Ortiz, André; Maibaum, Arne (2017): Conference Report: Bridges over Troubled Water. Die Konstitution von Netzwerken im Innovationsprozess. Soziopolis

Oehme, Katharina (2013): Rahmen und Routinen der Techniknutzung. Was kann man aus Experimenten über alltägliche Techniknutzung lernen? TUTS-WP-2-2013, TU Berlin

Presentations:

03/2020: Innovative Growth Companies and Entrepreneurial Teams: The Relationship of Personal and Interorganizational Networks. DGNet Conference, Schader Foundation, Darmstadt

09/2019: Philip Roth and Katharina Scheidgen: Local Cultures of Tie Formation: The Impact of Context-specific Institutions on Advice Tie Formation. 4th European Conference on Social Networks, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

 09/2019: How New Ventures form Organizational Ties: The Varying Impact of Personal Ties in Berlin and Silicon Valley. 4th European Conference on Social Networks, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

07/2019: How entrepreneurs acquire resources from the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Symposium "Temporal Dynamics in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems" at Herrenhaussen Castle, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, Hannover

04/2019: Entrepreneurial networking in Berlin and Silicon Valley. A Comparison. Invited talk: Brown Bag Lecture at NIKOS-Entrepreneurship Department, University of Twente, Netherlands

04/2019: Wie Start-ups und Spin-offs Netzwerke bilden. Berlin und Silicon Valley im Vergleich. Frühjahrstagung der Sektion Organisationssoziologie, Helmut Schmidt Universität Hamburg

04/2019: Understanding resource akquisition in entrepreneurial teams: The relation of personal and organizational networks. Workshop des DFG-Netzwerks "Venturing together", TU München

02/2019: Philip Roth und Katharina Scheidgen: Lokale Kulturen der Formation von Ratgebernetzwerken im Kontext von Innovationsversuchen, Frühjahrstagung der DGS-Sektion Soziologische Netzwerkforschung, Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften, Cologne

09/2018: Philip Roth and Katharina Scheidgen: Eigenlogiken der Netzwerkgenese – Von der systematischen Bedeutung kontextspezifischen Wissens über legitime Praktiken für die Genese von Netzwerken im Innovationsprozess. 39. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, Göttingen

08/2018: Social Contexts in Team Formation. Why do Start-ups and Spin-offs Form Teams Differently? 78th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, USA

06/2018: Suntje Schmidt, Timo Braun, and Katharina Scheidgen: Temporal Dynamics in Entrepreneurial Networks and Ecosystems. 3rd Workshop of the Scientific Network „Temporary Organizing“, Tilburg University, Niederlande

06/2018: Katharina Scheidgen and Thomas Schmidt: How networking practices constitute entrepreneurial ecosystems. Babson Conference, Waterford Institute of Technology, Irland

06/2018: Networking for Innovation: Entrepreneurial Networking in Berlin and Silicon Valley. A Comparison. Doctoral Consortium, Babson Conference, Waterford Institute of Technology, Irland

04/2018: Social Contexts in Team Formation: Why Do Independent Start-ups and University Spin-offs Form Teams Differently?, Workshop: "Venturing together! Cross-disciplinary network on entrepreneurial groups". TU Berlin

11/2017: Network development during the founding process. A comparison of start-ups and university spin-offs. Workshop of the Working Group "Network Analysis and Organizations", Heidelberg

07/2017: The impact of organizational and interorganizational practices on the governance of fields. 33rd EGOS Colloquium, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen

07/2017: Network development processes of start-ups and university spin-offs. EGOS Pre-Colloquium PhD Workshop, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen

05/2017: Embedding in fields by embedded networking: Start-ups’ networking practices in distinctive contexts. The Fifth Austrian Early Scholar Workshop in Management, WU Vienna 

03/2017: Network development processes of start-ups in innovation-specific fields. New Institutionalism Workshop, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem

02/2017: Networking practices of start-ups: Influenced by the context, influencing network design?. 2nd Workshop on Entrepreneurship as Practice, UCD School of Business, Dublin

10/2016: How fields matter: Network development of start-ups in innovation-specific contexts. ISBE Conference, Paris

10/2016: Innovationsspezifische Netzwerkbildung von Start-ups im Innovationsprozess. Workshop: Bridges Over Troubled Water: Die Konstitution von Netzwerken im Innovationsprozess, TU Berlin

05/2016: Innovation-specific network development processes of start-ups. The Fourth Austrian Early Scholar Workshop in Management, JKU Linz

Workshops:

07/2019: Temporal Dynamics in Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. Herrenhäuser Symposium, Hannover, together with Suntje Schmidt (HU Berlin and IRS Erkner) and Timo Braun (FU Berlin), funded by Volkswagen Foundation. www.tdee-symposium.org

01/2017: Organisation of the workshop: „Process Research and research on interorganisational collaboration“ with Prof. Hans Berends, VU Amsterdam

10/2016: Organisation of the workshop: Bridges Over Troubled Water: The constitution of networks during innovation processes, Graduate School „Innovation Society Today.“, TU Berlin. www.konstitution-von-netzwerken.de

CV: