Drawing from the dynamic learning perspective of entrepreneurship, this paper investigates how entrepreneurs' learning activities and new venture performance (early sales and employee growth) are impacted by reliance on different network tie partners (strong and weak ties) for learning. Utilizing a sample of early-stage high technology ventures in incubators, we find weak ties help improve performance when utilized as a source of assistance in certain learning domains, but reduce performance when utilized as a source of help in other learning areas. The relationship between customer learning activities and employee growth is strengthened by entrepreneurs' reliance on weak ties for help with customer learning. On the other hand, the relationship between financial learning activities and employee growth is weakened by entrepreneurs’ reliance on weak ties for help with financial learning. By accounting for the complex interplay between both content (domain learning activity) and process attributes (tie reliance for learning), the paper contributes by developing and testing a theoretical framework more capable of explaining the dynamics of entrepreneurial learning.

从企业家精神的动态学习角度出发，本文研究了依赖于不同网络关系伙伴（强关系和弱关系）进行学习如何影响企业家的学习活动和新企业绩效（早期销售和员工成长）。通过在孵化器中使用早期高科技企业的样本，我们发现薄弱的纽带在某些学习领域中被用作辅助资源时有助于提高绩效，而在其他学习领域中被用作帮助源时则降低绩效。企业家依靠薄弱的关系来帮助客户学习，从而加强了客户学习活动与员工成长之间的关系。另一方面，企业家对薄弱关系的依赖对金融学习的帮助削弱了金融学习活动与员工成长之间的关系。通过考虑内容（领域学习活动）和过程属性（对学习的依赖）之间复杂的相互作用，本文通过开发和测试更能解释创业学习动态的理论框架做出了贡献。