Research in innovation management and entrepreneurship highlights that an individual’s network can impact entrepreneurial success. Personal networks help individuals identify entrepreneurial opportunities, find diverse ideas and relevant information, and access entrepreneurial support resources. This study examines the impact of individual and programmatic factors on network growth and corresponding impact on entrepreneurial success. The study follows the network evolution of participants in NSF I-Corps, an entrepreneurial training program for early-stage deep technology entrepreneurs. Participant ego networks were captured by having participants enter anonymized data (all people are numbers) on connections from the online platform LinkedIn. Additional data on strength of connections was also captured for each connection. Participants were also asked to identify which connections were gained through the training program. Participant networks were analyzed to determine underlying network structure. This involved the use of network structural metrics such as centralization, density, and proportions of strong ties. Analysis of network structural metrics over time was used to quantitatively represent different networking strategies. Differences in participants’ networks across different cohorts and sub-programs within the training program will be used to identify best practices for improving innovation and entrepreneurial outcomes.
Authors
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Hadear Hassan is a Doctoral Candidate in the J. Mike Walker ‘66 Department of Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University. She holds a BSc. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M University. Her research interest includes smart and sustainable manufacturing and engineering education. Hadear Hassan received the J. George H. Thompson Fellowship in 2022 and the Texas A&M University at Qatar Ph.D Fellowship in 2021.
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Dr. Hipwell has been working in the area of technology development based upon nanoscale phenomena for over 20 years. She received her B.S.M.E. from Rice University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley. Upon graduation, she went to work at Seagate Technology’s Recording Head Division in Bloomington, Minnesota. During her time at Seagate, Dr. Hipwell held various individual and leadership positions in the areas of reliability, product development, and advanced mechanical and electrical technology development. In these various roles, she established new business processes and an organizational culture that focused on developing innovative solutions from root cause understanding, improved pace of learning, and discipline in experimentation and configuration management. She was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2016 for her leadership in the development of technologies to enable areal density and reliability increases in hard disk drives and was elected a National Academy of Inventors Fellow in 2018. Dr. Hipwell is currently the Oscar S. Wyatt, Jr. ’45 Chair II at Texas A&M University, where she has developed new classes on innovation and technology development as part of her leadership of the INVENT (INnoVation tools and Entrepreneurial New Technology) Lab. She is Co-PI on a National Science Foundation engineering education grant to develop a culture of and tools for iterative experimentation and continuous improvement in curriculum development.
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Astrid Layton is an assistant professor and Donna Walker Faculty Fellow at Texas A&M University in Mechanical Engineering. She received her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. She is interested in bio-inspired system design problems and was a 2024 NSF CAREER award winner based on this work.
Note
The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on
June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025
