Heuristic and Network Position: a Cognitive and Structural Framework on Innovation

This chapter explores the reason why a firm that occupies a structural hole within a network is more innovative than firms strictly embedded in the network, even though it is at the periphery of knowledge circulation within the network. Proposed framework is based on a cognitive point of view on the “innovative capability” concept. The chaptre tries to link the most recent literature on network and knowledge with that one on cognitive psychology. It posits that the structural hole firm does not share information or knowledge, but heuristics that foster its innovation. Creativity, thus innovation, can be considered as the outcome of being exposed to different heuristics due to the structural hole position in a network.