Social capital characteristics in RD project networks

Network research has multiple approaches that offer knowledge related to multiple network types. This article identifies and discusses social capital characteristics in the context of government-funded RD project networks. Previous literature on this context has typically focused on collaboration between universities and firms while our interest is solely on interfirm relationships. Secondly, the previous literature on interfirm collaboration concerns typically other types of networks such as strategic alliances. We argue, that to understand the dynamics of inter firm collaboration in RD project networks, the research needs to be conducted in coherent environment. Data for this qualitative research was collected by interviewing 18 firm representatives who had experience on participating government-funded RD projects. We recognized social capital characteristics in RD projects and organized these findings under structural, cognitive and relational dimensions of social capital. Results indicate that project networks' social capital characteristics differ in many parts from strategic alliances and thus support our argument. The results can be exploited by project coordinators, innovation officers and project network members to facilitate the interfirm collaboration in RD project networks.