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Communities Versus Networks

The Implications on Innovation and Social Change

University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy, and Massachusetts, Institute of Technology, USA

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.

Key Words: communities • networks • incremental innovation • radical innovation • social change

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