Networks

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Social Networks
Cultural and interpersonal communication factors in participation in international social networks

Questions - please add comments

 * 1) Is there a use for Web 2.0 tools such as Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube etc?
 * 2) Has your organization developed a strategy for using any of these Web 2.0 tools?
 * 3) How would you benefit from being a part of a wider professional network?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For example, Linkedin [] has helpful discussion groups on Spin-off companies, the Front End of Innovation, Technology Commercialization and others.See also Innovation models: <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 13.3333px;">Module 4. Open innovation, open business models in this Handbook

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Cultural and interpersonal communication barriers between scientists and foreign business partners and customers can cause projects with high potential to fail from very beginning or not even start. Communication inefficiencies can be a significant factor in management weakness.For example, as described in the 2006 study: **Communication inefficiencies between Russian scientists and foreign business partners,** full report or executive summary.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">To improve relations between scientists and foreign business partners and to increase commercialization of science and technology it is necessary to understand and reduce these communication inefficiencies.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> A country can benefit from increased globalization of R&D by multinational companies only if communication inefficiencies are significantly reduced. Frequent reasons for communication problems between researchers and foreign partners are: lack of trust between partners, wrong expectations, preconceptions and stereotypes, language barriers, lack of business communication skills, fear of punishment for open communication of negative news.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Modules

 * 1) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Intermediaries.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Effective communications with business partners.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Disconnects in communications, cultural problems in business communications and their solutions.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Face-to-face versus at-a-distance communications, on-line communications, effective people networks.
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Managing virtual teams.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">These Modules are a guide only to the planned content of this Handbook Section. Please add new content to this page, or use the discussion Tab. As the wiki grows we will move things around.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Additional external links
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> []
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Social Networks in Silicon Valley **

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is the classic paper describing the way the labor market works in Silicon Valley. Extensive labor mobility creates rapidly shifting and permeable firm <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> and institutional boundaries and dense personal networks across the technical and professional population. The ability of Silicon Valley to restructure itself when conditions change through rapid and frequent reshuffling of organizational and institutional boundaries and members. Workers’ social connections are considered resources that yield economic returns in the form of better hiring outcomes.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> You are probably not creating a Silicon Valley, but there is much to learn which can be applied to smaller scale efforts.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">** The Strength of Weak Ties ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The theoretical basis of what we propose is the “strength of weak ties” namely, our trusted partners each have their own networks of strong ties. In his classic paper (//The American Journal of Sociology//, Vol. 78, No. 6. (May, 1973), pp. 1360-1380)

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Mark S. Granovetter introduced the concept of strong and weak ties. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> He argues that strong social ties, such as those of close friendships and the nuclear family, are good for exerting power but almost useless for search, as a dense network has highly redundant information. In contrast, weak ties, i.e. connections with acquaintances, contain much less redundant information than strong ties, making weak ties very effective at search. What this means for technology commercialization, including searching for partners and markets, is that we must link beyond our immediate contacts (strong ties with whom we may feel comfortable) to more remote weak links.