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262 INSTITUTIONAL EMBEDDEDNESS OF HIGH-TECH REGIONS clusters. But what types of network relations are most critical? Do informal personal ties and occupational relations provide more open pathways to enhance the flow of ideas than more formal, contractual affiliations? Does the institutional form of the dominant organization shape the organizational practices of the members of a regional community, determining the nature of spillovers? How does the overlap of multiple types of networks across a diverse array of organizations create an ecosystem, with a distinctive character and accompanying norms that define membership in this community? To address these questions, we combine four unique data sets that account, in various ways, for the organization of the life-sciences community in the greater Boston, Massachusetts metropolitan area. Boston is home to one of the largest concentrations of dedicated biotechnology firms in the world. 1 In addition, Boston has a rich array of public research organizations, including research universities (Harvard, MIT, Tufts), research hospitals (Brigham and Women’s, Massachusetts General), and medical research institutes (Dana Farber Cancer Center). During the 1990s, the Boston area also developed a very active venture capital sector that funded biotech start-up firms (Powell et al., 2002). By the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Kendall Square neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts was home to the world’s largest single, geographically concentrated cluster of biotech firms. Kendall Square is also home to MIT and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, an …