Why Knowledge Exchange & Innovation?

Martin Ruef of Stanford's Graduate Business School writes that entrepreneurs who spend more time with a diverse network of strong and weak ties—of family, friends, business colleagues, advisors, acquaintances, and complete strangers—are three times more likely to innovate than entrepreneurs stuck within a uniform network. "Diverse networks and sources of information encourage the diffusion of non-redundant information and thus stimulate creativity," says Ruef. In terms of the entrepreneurial team itself, "the more entrepreneurs you have, the more likely you are to have innovation because people come in with different backgrounds and perspectives." Ruef cautions, though, that even if complete strangers spend a lot of time together, the ties among them soon will be the equivalent of strong ties and drown out the benefits of non-redundant information.

Martin Ruef on Weak Ties and Innovation

Strong Ties, Weak Ties, and Islands: Structural and Cultural Predictors of Organizational Innovation, Martin Ruef, Industrial and Corporate Change, 11: 427-49, 2002