Network-based research in entrepreneurship

Connecting the Dots for Social Value: A Review on Social Networks and Social Entrepreneurship

“…Hence, analyses at a micro-level observe that social entrepreneurs display specific traits and skills, as compared to their commercial counterparts. However, even though social networks may be employed in a different way in social entrepreneurship, using social networks as a means to an end is also a feature of commercial entrepreneurship (Hoang and Antoncic 2003). It seems, however, less frequent in the entrepreneurship literature to consider social networks as an end in itself, as it is observed in the following subsection.…”

“…The literature on networks and entrepreneurship is abundant (Hoang and Antoncic 2003). Four theoretical frameworks or themes that are relevant avenues to understand the role of social networks in the emergence of social entrepreneurship have been identified.…”

“…Analysing networks and entrepreneurship in a processual way, Larson and Starr (1993) present a network model of organization formation in a widely cited but barely empirically tested article (Hoang and Antoncic 2003;Slotte-Kock and Coviello 2010). The authors argue that the simple and idiosyncratic personalized relationships of the entrepreneur transform into a network of stable, multidimensional inter-organizational exchange relationships through three stages.…”

Researching Entrepreneurial Failures

“…While we have a strong understanding of relationship ties and the ways they affect entrepreneurial activity within (Kelley, Peters, & O'Connor, 2009;Stam & Elfring, 2008) and outside (Hoang & Antoncic, 2003;Jack, 2005) the organization, we know relatively little about how these ties change (if at all) after failure. Future research has the chance to add to the body of knowledge on this topic by investigating how entrepreneurs' formal (business) relationships change after inter-organizational relationships cease as a result of business failure and when intra-organizational relationships cease due to project failure.…”

“…Although the benefits of weak ties are lauded in the literature for their role in the identification of a potential opportunity (Ardichvili, Cardozo, & Ray, 2003;Hoang & Antoncic, 2003), perhaps strong ties are more important in helping reduce the social costs of failure. It could be that strong ties represent surrogates that help repair weak ties damaged by failure or help in the creation of new weak ties necessitated by the loss of previous weak ties through failure.…”