Abstract
Firms belonging to territorial agglomerations such as industrial districts, establish a number of interdependences among them, which provide diverse benefits as access to shared resources. Social networks have been used to represent these interactions in which firms and institutions are embedded. However, firms establish different networks according to the different strategic objectives to be covered. Our study shows the existence of two different types of relational networks: the business network and the knowledge network. This work proves how both networks are significantly different in structural characteristics in terms of density, closeness or intermediation. On the other hand, these networks provide differentiated effects in density and abundance of nodes. These findings offer a better understanding of the internal heterogeneity of these territorial networks and suggest a number of implications for both future research and practitioners. © 2011 ACEDE.
