In literature about knowledge management and sociology of innovation, the concepts of community and network are often superimposed if not used in an undifferentiated way. This deprives them of part of their heuristic power. In this article, the two concepts are revisited under a common framework of reference: placing them at the two extremes of a continuum of the different possible relationships (hetero directed vs. self-directed) between an agent and the environment in which it operates. Communities are social containers for incremental innovation, whereas networks are the place for boundary-spanning learning and as a consequence, for radical innovation.
Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (2000). The social life of information. Boston: Harvard Business School.
2.
Burt, R. S. (1992). Structural holes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
3.
Conway, S., & Steward, F. (1998). Mapping innovation networks. International Journal of Innovation Management, 2(2), 165-196.
4.
Dal Fiore, F. (2005). Dar forma all'innovazione: la co-generazione del valore e dei significati [Shaping innovation: The co-generation of meaning and value]. In M. Costa & F. Dal Fiore (Eds.), Entità in formazione. Governare il cambiamento tra comunità e network (pp. 100-120). Turin, Italy: UTET.
5.
Fagerberg, J. (2003). Schumpeter and the revival of evolutionary economics: An appraisal of the literature. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 13, 125-159.
6.
Florida, R. (2003). The rise of the creative class. New York: Basic Books.
7.
Ghoshal, S., Korine, H., & Szulansky, G. (1994). Interunit communication in multinational corporation. Management Sciences, 40, 96-100.
8.
Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 81, 1287-1303.
9.
Hansen, M. T. (1999). The search-transfer problem: The role of weak ties in sharing knowledge across organization subunits. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 82-11.
10.
Hargadon, A. (2003). How breakthroughs happen: The surprising truth about how companies innovate. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
11.
Hildreth, P., & Kimble, C. (2004). Knowledge networks: Innovation through communities of practice. Hershey, PA: Idea Group.
12.
Koku, E., & Wellman, B. (2004). Scholarly networks as learning communities: The case of Technet. In S. Barab et al. (Eds.), Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning (pp. 1429-1447). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
13.
Lam, A. (2000). Tacit knowledge, organizational learning and societal institutions: An integrated framework. Organizational Studies, 21, 487-451.
14.
Lam, A. (2002). Alternative societal models of learning and innovation in the knowledge economy. International Social Science Journals, 171, 67-82.
15.
Lesson on innovation networks (SEIN Project White Paper). (2001). Retrieved Mar 9, 2006, from http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/iwt/sein/innonet.html
16.
Monge, P., & Contractor, N. (2003). Theories of communication networks. New York: Oxford University Press.
17.
Nonaka, I., & Konno, N. (1998). Ba: Building a foundation for knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40(3), 40-54.
18.
Noteboom, B. (1999). Innovation, learning and industrial organization. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 23, 127-150.
19.
Postman, N. (1993). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Vintage.
20.
Rogers, E. (1983). Diffusion of innovation. New York: Free Press.
21.
Ruef, M. (2002). Strong ties, weak ties and islands: Structural and cultural predictors of organizational innovation. Industrial and Corporate Change, 11, 427-449.
22.
Scott, J. (2000). Social network analysis: A handbook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
23.
Shumpeter, J. (1934). The theory of economic development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
24.
Szulansky, G. (1996). Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17, 27-43.
25.
Tönnies, F. (1887). Community and society. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.
26.
Tuomi, I. (2003). Networks of innovation: Change and meaning in the age of the Internet. Oxford, UK:Oxford University Press.
27.
Uzzi, B. (1996). The sources and consequences of embeddedness for the economic performance of organizations: The network effect. American Sociological Review, 17, 674-698.
28.
Von Hippel, E. (2005). Democratizing innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
29.
Watts, D. J. (2003). Six degrees: The science of the connected age. New York: Norton.
30.
Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
31.
Castells, M. (1999). The rise of the network society. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
32.
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity. London: Polity.
33.
Milgram, S. (1967). The small-world problem. Psychology Today, 1, 60-67.
34.
Polanyi, M. (1964). Personal knowledge towards a post critical philosophy. New York: Harper & Row.
35.
Simmel, G. (1971). On individuality and social forms. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
36.
Wellman, B., Carrington, P. J., & Hall, A. (1988). Networks as personal communities. In B. Wellman & S. D. Berkowitz (Eds.), Social structures: A network approach (pp. 130-184). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
