Towards pioneering through capabilities in dense and cohesive social networks

This paper seeks to examine how dense and cohesive social networks can lead to pioneering. In this sense, the specific aim of this study is to analyse the mediating role placed by marketing and technological capabilities to explain the link among the structural social capital and the pioneering.

Focusing on a sample of 224 companies from the Spanish footwear industry, the authors used partial least squares (PLS) with PLS‐Graph software to analyse data.

The obtained results show how those firms with a dense and strong social network tend to develop pioneering. In this sense, a positive and significant relationship is found between structural social capital and pioneering. Furthermore, a strong positive relationship is found between structural social capital and marketing and technological capabilities, and of both kinds of capabilities with pioneering. The study also finds that the significant relationship between structural social capital and pioneering disappears under the effect of a firm's capabilities.

This study develops a cross‐sectional and non‐longitudinal approach. In any case, it is clear that the cross‐sectional approach of the study suffices for the proposed aims, having already been put to good use in other studies on entry timing.

It is demonstrated how in mature industries such as the footwear industry, albeit unhampered by strong entry and imitation barriers, marketing and technological capabilities position barriers can be established, which favour a firm's expectations of obtaining FMAs.

This study provides theoretical linkages between concepts of several theoretical approaches, social capital, RBV and the FMAs approach.