Entrepreneurial innovation and business network externalities: the evolution of co-working

Firms characterized by an entrepreneurial orientation are able to generate entrepreneurial innovation. An entrepreneurial orientation reflects how a firm is organized to discover and exploit market opportunities. Traditionally, researchers considered innovative opportunities as the result of systematic efforts to create knowledge and new ideas by investing in R&D. Differently, in a collaborative perspective, opportunities are founded on knowledge diffusion that is greater where spatially bounded, as facilitated by intensive face-to-face interactions between members of the community characterized by social relationships. Shifting the attention from social to business relationships, the main aim of this paper is to investigate the development of business network externalities in the entrepreneurial innovation process. Going more in depth the paper analyses the new role of co-working centres in the process of entrepreneurial innovation. This research is based on a case study approach. During years the co-working centres have changed their strategy providing innovative entrepreneurial services. As findings outline, the emblematic Italian co-working centre can support the entrepreneurial innovation process through business network externalities. These latter are founded on interconnected business relationships developed by co-working centre with internal residents and external business partners.