Redes de consejo en la industria biotecnológica en Francia.

Abstract

In this article we explore inter-organizational advice networks to build on the idea that the nature of the functional interdependencies between actors is different at the intra-organizational and the inter-organizational level. This difference influences the way in which members of a collective attempt to solve problems associated with evaluating the relevance of knowledge. At the intra-organizational level, cognitive conflicts are resolved by a movement of centralization and alignment around a few actors who benefit from formal authority. This hegemony, formal and cognitive, allows them to impose a consensus and to exercise high control over the collective. In contrast, this paper shows that at the inter-organizational level, cognitive conflicts are resolved by a movement of polarization, which is maintained in part by the relational activism of several opinion leaders whose coercive power is not absolute. We illustrate this learning process through advice networks between scientific entrepreneurs in the French biotechnology industry.

Keywords

• collective learning
• homophily
• social polarization
• opinion leaders