Abstract

For a long time, the territory's development has been associated to the growth of a geographic area according to an endogenous perspective, namely the growth depends on the improvement of existing local resources. Nowadays, in order to investigate the development of the territory and its entrepreneurial pattern, an external perspective is required. The main aim of this paper is to investigate the ability of a community of practices to develop a territory's innovative potentialities. In a new external approach, as depicted in the case study, the development of innovation in a territory relies on the interconnections between short and long relationships through which actors can share resources to generate innovative solutions. The research investigates the community of practices generated by ComoNExT Innovation Hub characterized by open borders. In an internal perspective, the Innovation Hub sustains the growth of the community of new ventures in it located and tenants of the Hub. In a wider perspective, the Innovation Hub promotes best practices sharing in the Innovation area with the firms belonging both to its territory and to different ones. The Innovation Network, as findings outline, can thus create value for each actor and for the whole territorial system, also influencing the entrepreneurial pattern.