Obstacles, Networking Approaches and Entrepreneurial Network Changes

Abstract

While recent work has considered network change, little is known about how certain factors determine such changes. This study focuses on two factors – the type of obstacles entrepreneurs face and their networking approach – and employs a two‐stage research design and network visualisation approach to capture entrepreneurs’ experiences in managing networks during their entrepreneurial journey. Using an inductive approach, the first stage of the study identifies the obstacles and networking approaches that influence different types of network changes. The second stage employs a deductive approach to test the hypotheses developed from the first stage using a larger sample. We find that in experiencing obstacles from internal sources, entrepreneurs are more likely to find support from weak ties while strong ties are beneficial for overcoming obstacles from external sources. In having difficulties in acquiring entrepreneurial knowledge and skills, entrepreneurs are more likely to develop a low‐density network consisting of many structural holes. Conversely, dealing with difficulties in accessing market and resources imposes over‐reliance on high‐density network. Furthermore, the entrepreneurs’ networking approaches also influence network changes and partially mediate the relationship between the networks and the obstacles they face.

Entrepreneurial Failure: A Synthesis and Conceptual Framework of its Effects

“…McGrath (1999) places a strong emphasis on the economy level the failure impacts, which can be related to, for instance, economic growth, technological progress, or changes in law and policy. Similarly, theoretical claims made by Hoetker and Agarwal (2007) or Knott and Posen (2005) highlight impacts on the economy as well as industry, competitors, and business networks (Soetanto et al, 2018). The EF effects on business surroundings support findings that failures have a spillover effect on other market players, including their products and services (Allen et al, 2015).…”

Influential Factors of Network Changes: Dynamic Network Ties and Sustainable Startup Embeddedness

“…One stream investigated networks as an independent variable influencing the performance of startups [14,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26]. The other, lessresearched stream considered networks as a dependent variable, i.e., why and how networks evolve [3,6,8,11,15,[27][28][29].…”

“…Networks have received increasing attention as contributors to sustainable entrepreneurial success since they benefit entrepreneurial capacity in terms of finances, technologies, marketing, and social aspects [1]. Since Aldrich and Zimmer [2], the observation of networks has developed from static approaches to dynamic ones because scholars considered that this matches the characteristics of startups as their needs for various resources, like technological capability or investments [3], are constantly changing [3,4]. Besides these resources, which served as a factor for network changes [3,[5][6][7][8][9], additional factors have only been researched in a very fragmented manner and through varying network perspectives.…”

“…In addition, the categorization of the identified factors consisted of different constructions. Soetanto et al [3], for example, used a classification according to internal and external factors, while Larson [8] analyzed the factors according to the different stages of development of the ties.…”

Protocol: How to measure teamwork and networking competencies

“…Esta competencia se ha considerado en la literatura como una variable fuertemente ligada a resultados positivos y ahorros de costes en las organizaciones (Procter & Currie, 2004) (Marin-Garcia et al, 2010;Marin-Garcia et al, 2008b;Marin-Garcia & Zarate-Martinez, 2008;Perello-Marin et al, 2016) Por otro lado, la red de trabajo puede definirse como "la capacidad de integrar/cooperar con agentes externos al grupo de trabajo natural" (Marin-Garcia et al, 2016a). Esta variable ha sido utilizada tradicionalmente como competencia organizativa (Soetanto et al, 2018;Tehseen & Sajilan, 2016). Pero desde hace unos años parece que toma cuerpo la aplicación del concepto de construir una red de relaciones a la competencia de las personas (Porter et al, 2016;Rasdi et al, 2013) y no de las organizaciones como colectivo.…”