Authors: Helen McGrath; Thomas O’Toole
New ventures have strong strategic impetus for engaging with networks to overcome their classic limitations of being small and new. This paper identifies the early stage network engagement strategies that new ventures employ to gain traction in interaction in the development of network capability. Early stage new venture engagement strategies are the initial experimental postures new ventures use to activate their business-to-business networks. Our qualitative study, based on 24 new ventures in Ireland, Belgium and the USA, identifies five early stage network engagement strategies: (1) co-branding/Co-promoting (2) social media platforming (3) from maker to adapter (4) business-to-business referrals and (5) network role. Our paper adds to the growing body of literature that places interaction, relationships and networks at the heart of strategy making and provides important insights for new ventures, which may lead to earlier and greater success for the firms.
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