WHAT MATTERS MOST FOR INNOVATION CAPABILITY OF SMES: STRUCTURAL OR COGNITIVE FEATURES OF NETWORKING?

摘要

Our paper aims to analyse the effects of the networking of the entrepreneur on the innovation capability of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). For this purpose, we examine the mediation of the knowledge management in our business model in the relationship between structural and cognitive features of networking and innovation capability. Our results show, in the specific case of 124 entrepreneurs in North African SMEs, that the networking is concretised by innovation capability in the presence of a partial mediation of the knowledge management for cognitive features, and a full mediation for structural features. The originality of research lies in the formulation of networking-based entrepreneurship model in which the reinforcement of innovation capability of SME is conditioned by knowledge management, which is facilitated by structural and cognitive features of networking.