Pour créer des collaborations fructueuses au sein des écosystèmes d’innovation, se rencontrer ne suffit pas

Abstract

Initiatives to develop an ecosystem conducive to the creation and growth of businesses and/or innovation are based on the idea of bringing together a diversity of actors. Open and diversified social interactions then support and drive innovation. These determining factors of ecosystem success are perceived as “easy” both to achieve and to multiply. In this article, we return to some basic findings of network sociology and use the homophily concept to examine the sociological feasibility of this multiplication and diversification of relationships. The analysis is based on the study of two exemplary cases: the case of the Montreal startup ecosystem in the digital field, where the absence of homophily explains the relative scarcity of collaboration, and the case of l’Esplanade, a Montreal business accelerator and collaborative network dedicated to entrepreneurship and social innovation, where the commonality of the actors explains the significant collaboration observed.