Network analysis of SME’s innovation activities : the forgotten role of homophily
Innovation studies in SMEs has been interested for long time by the place and role of networks. In these studies, everything happens as if all the relations were possible and also likely. Yet, nothing is more inaccurate : all the relations do not have the same probability to exist and networks are also structured and hierarchical. In networks analysis, this classic observation sends back to the principle of homophily ; principle according to which people or organizations tend to form connections with others who are similar to them in social or organizational characteristics. From an exploratory research based on interviews with entrepreneurs and managers of firms working in the industry of clean technologies, we will see how the principle of homophily turns out to be necessary in the understanding of, on one hand, the existence of the relations observed in the innovation’s activities of SMEs, and on the other, their capacity to give access to the resources which the SMEs need in their innovation’s projects.