We study the formation of an entrepreneurial network in an environment, in which entrepreneurs who are contesting with each other for the development of a new venture have the possibility to collaborate. On the one hand, such bilateral knowledge collaborations are beneficial because they allow the integration of external knowledge. On the other hand, external knowledge collaborations reduce an entrepreneur’s incentive to invest in her internal knowledge. We analyze this trade-off and show that if the knowledge transfer between collaborating partners is complete, the only stable entrepreneurial network is one with exactly one collaboration of each entrepreneur. If, however, knowledge transfers are only partial, entrepreneurial networking becomes more important and entrepreneurs form more knowledge collaborations. Moreover, internal or external knowledge spillovers reduce the incentives to form knowledge collaboration. These results have several practical implication for entrepreneurs and managers of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their pursuit to better understand factors that influence knowledge collaborations with competitors and to devise their co-opetition strategy.

我们研究创业网络在一个环境中的形成，在这个环境中，为新企业的发展而相互竞争的企业家有可能合作。一方面，这种双边知识合作是有益的，因为它们允许整合外部知识。另一方面，外部知识合作减少了企业家投资于其内部知识的动机。我们分析了这种权衡并表明，如果合作伙伴之间的知识转移是完整的，那么唯一稳定的创业网络就是每个创业者恰好有一个合作的网络。然而，如果知识转移只是部分的，创业网络变得更加重要并且创业者形成更多的知识合作。而且，内部或外部知识溢出减少了形成知识协作的动机。这些结果对于中小型企业 (SME) 的企业家和管理者在寻求更好地了解影响与竞争对手知识合作的因素并制定合作竞争策略的过程中具有若干实际意义。