Entrepreneurship & Networks: A Literature Review

In recent years within entrepreneurship literature a “contextualised” perspective has emerged to place emphasis on the wide variety of contexts where entrepreneurial processes are undertaken. This led to a more complex view attempting to provide an additional and complementary perspective to “mainstream” contributions based on the analysis of entrepreneurial orientation and behaviour mainly in terms of opportunity recognition and exploitation. This attention to understanding the role of contexts has been due to the increasing effort in diffusing entrepreneurial culture and activities across sectors, regions and cities for economic development and social cohesion. This effort has been apparent with regard to the so called peripheral areas, which have been strongly affected by reduction of economic activities. In this scenario the role of networks emerges progressively in research dealing with entrepreneurship, both considered as an engine to entrepreneurial initiatives and development and as a specific context in which entrepreneurship takes place. In this paper we conduct a literature review on the topic of “Networks & Entrepreneurship” with a particular focus on the “spatial/geographical” dimension. The research is at its initial stage and will constitute the basis for settling the state of the art on the issue to elaborate further on the interplay between Networks and Entrepreneurship in Peripheral Areas.