In this latest in a series of articles on the innovative use of experimental business laboratories for high-expectation entrepreneurs, the authors focus on the networking benefits of business lab experiments. Distinguishing between ‘Robinson Crusoe’ types, whose tendency is to operate in isolation, and ‘Lemuel Gulliver’ types, who rely on interaction with others, they suggest that engaging Crusoe entrepreneurs in the open participatory environment of the experimental laboratory encourages them to discard their bad habit of working in a closed environment in favour of interaction and sharing. This, the authors argue, is an essential change in light of the evolving process of innovation, which is moving from a closed process through an open one towards a future in which competing innovation networks become the norm. They demonstrate the nature of contemporary entrepreneurship and innovation by drawing analogies from physics and the article closes with a case study of their theory in practice.
