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Social Capital and Entrepreneurial Behaviour Advancing Innovativeness in Interaction between Small Rural Entrepreneurs and Researchers: A Phenomenographic Study

ABSTRACT Innovation processes between entrepreneurs and researchers are activated by interaction. Social capital increases the efficiency of action, for example, information dissemination by minimising redundancy. To learn more about how to build and develop social capital assumes that we understand how entrepreneurs behave and what their expectations of interaction with researchers are. The purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of what entrepreneurs want and expect from interaction, how they act and perceive the scope of social capital in interaction. In this study we adopt a theoretical approach that combines social capital and entrepreneurial behaviour. The firms in this study are located in the South Savo region of Finland and operate in food production. As a result of interviews with 15 entrepreneurs, a system of categories was compiled as the phenomenographic method assumes. It became obvious that the key dynamics of the cooperation between entrepreneurs and researchers is embedded in a common understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour and learning as well as a trust-building process. As a practical implication, we suggest that through adopting specific features of entrepreneurial behaviour and acknowledging the preconditions for building trust researchers could pave the way to innovativeness of rural entrepreneurs. The results of this study could be valuable for research organisations focusing on research cooperation with rural entrepreneurs.