Social capital and its effect on networked firm innovation and competitiveness

International and local policymakers have repeatedly encouraged the development of clusters -a dense geographic concentration of interconnected businesses- to boost competitiveness at both the firm and regional levels, as well as foster innovation and new product development. Following this trend, many initiatives have started to provide services and infrastructure that can facilitate the establishment of formal and informal ties between firms, local institutions or research centres, as well as upgrade the stock of human and intellectual capital. In this scenario, the present study empirically documents the effects of an innovation network, established by a regional government institution, on the participating firms. In particular, firm-level primary data, derived from the participants of 'Polo di Innovazione ICT - Abruzzo' in Italy, empirically support how the cognitive, structural and relational dimensions of the social capital developed within a cluster initiative affect the performance of participating firms, unveiling a negative moderation effect arising from firms' involvement in the cluster program.