Social and Symbolic Capital in Firm Clusters: An Empirical Investigation of Relational Resources and Innovation Capabilities

Research is accentuating the importance of social and symbolic capital as a significant resource for the development of networks or clusters. The question, how to describe and operationalise social and symbolic capital in firm clusters, and the impact on the development of innovation capabilities have been neglected until now. Based on a relational perspective this paper analyses the case of the "Mechatronics Cluster" in Southern Jutland, Denmark. We found that cluster managers are not aware of the importance of social and symbolic capital. Cluster managers could have access to both but they are not aware of this resource and they don't have any knowledge how to manage social and symbolic capital. Just to integrate social-capital-supporting initiatives in the day to day business would help to develop and to foster social and symbolic capital on a low cost level. And in our example just to integrate successful sub-clusters in the regional cluster organisation would strengthen the innovative capabilities on the cluster and on the firm level.