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Drawing on both social network and social capital theory, this study explores the formation of 'elusive ensembles' on the internet in BioTech Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Social network and structural hole theories are combined to identify the social capital associated with a network, and this in turn is used to signal entrepreneurial opportunity. Interestingly the findings outline areas where better network coordination is possible. Specifically, the research suggests that entrepreneurial opportunities exist (1) to develop better relationships with those key actors who can exert influence on the network and (2) for enhancing value in the distribution channel by taking on the role as a network intermediary where suitable.

While open source product development and innovation is not a new phenomenon, it is a prominent form of offering development in the post-industrial age, facilitated by networked communication media. Understanding open source presents challenges to practitioners and academics alike. This article explores the open source phenomenon using themes characterising postmodernism, which is particularly apt to an information-rich context such as open source. The article defines and describes open source and then examines the phenomenon using the postmodern themes of fragmentation, dedifferentiation, time and space interaction, antifoundationalism and the values of paradox, reflexivity, and pastiche. The contention is that postmodernism illuminates thinking concerning open source as a means of invention and production in the information age, just as modernism illuminated thinking in the traditional approaches to physical invention and production in the industrial age.