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A Study Of Social Networks Of Entrepreneurs

Posted on:2011-02-08Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:W J TangFull Text:PDF
GTID:1119360308482899Subject:Human resources management
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This paper addresses Chinese entrepreneurs'social networks by means of social network theory (SNT) of Neo-Sociological Economist.Economic sociology can be briefly defined that by using traditional sociological analysis, Economic phenomena could be interpreted. Economic sociology and Economist not only share the same objective, but also has broadly similar concerns. However, there is one point that they are totally different, that is, Economic sociology placed emphasis on the role of social relationships and social systems in the economy. People live in society means that there must be inevitable links between them and they must participate in the social system. Such contacts and participations have profound impact on the Economic behavior of Economic actors at the individual level and the overall level (Swedberg Richard,2005).According to Swedberg (1991), a well-known New-Sociological Economist, economic sociology has a long tradition. Early academic masters such as Smith, Marx, Weber, etc., not only use Sociological method to analysis economic issues, economic method is also used to observe social issues. In other words, economics and sociology can be said "combined in each other" before 20th century. Schumpeter, Parsons and others can be divided into economic sociologists. In 1920s, the development of economic sociology is standstill, while until 1970s to 1980s it was resurgent (Swedberg,1991; 2005).In 1970s, social network theory has become very popular in Harvard. Professor Harrison White, who has brilliant achievement in the field of economics and sociology, has made great efforts to promote and develop this theory comprehensively and deeply. The students of. Professor White creatively use social network theory to study economic and social problems, which make the social network theory quickly become a significant learning in sociology, economics, management science and other fields. In 1985, Granovetter published "economic Action and social Structure:The embedding problem", and refined network approach was used for analyzing the economic and business issues that result in a great academic influence. White's other students who followed one after another published a series of papers and publications in the top economics and sociology academic journals, which has laid a solid academic foundation for the creation of the Neo-Sociological economics.In 1985, Granovetter advocator at the meeting of the American Journal of Sociology that Neo-Sociological Ergonomics needs to be created. He believes that "the old economic Sociology" has no difference with industrial Sociology and it has been declined. While Neo-Sociological Ergonomics'needs to challenge the basis of Neo-Classical Ergonomics and encroaches on the market Structure, production, price system, the allocation of consumption, and other cores of microeconomics. So far, the new economic Sociology movement has also adopted the subject name of Neo-Sociological Ergonomics (Swedberg,2005:32-33). The most significant difference between Neo-Sociological Ergonomics and "the old economic Sociology" is that whether social relations network theory is used.Social network theory has been widely used to study the Structure of enterprise. Robert Eagles even called social networks with high degree of steady-state "quasi-firm". Walter Powell also paid sufficient attention to it. Many Neo-Sociology Economists and other mainstream Economists in the transaction cost theory (Williamson as the representative) dialogued with mainstream management scientists in multi-system organization theory (chandler as the representative). The important contribution to organization and industrial Sociology research deepened and developed network theory (Swedberg, 1991:269).The reason why we briefly introduce the development and reformation of Neo-Sociology Economics in the first part is that we try to prove that the theoretic tool of social network theory used for analyzing the operation of private enterprises in this paper is not whim, but it has academic origins and academic legitimacy. Using social network to analysis business organizations essentially belongs to structuralism's approach. That school, created by the French anthropologist Levi-Strauss basing on cultural anthropology, has already infiltrated into every aspect of our lives, which is changing people's manners of observation and thinking. The school treats various cultures as systems and considers that they could be analyzed in aggrading with the structural relationship among the components. In general, structuralism's approach emphasizes the integrity, who believes that everything is a complex and integrated whole; the nature of any integral parts can not be understood in isolation, but only to be understood by putting it in a whole relational network, that is, linking it with other parts. Social lives are defined as a significant complex whole composed by ergonomic, technological, political, legal, ethical, religious and other factors, it can not be understood unless one aspect of them link with others. Thus, structuralism insisted that only depending on the existing relationships between the parts, the whole and part could be adequately explained. The nature and the first principle of structuralism's approach is that it seeks to study linking and complex network that combining elements' relation rather than study every elements of a whole (Wikipedia and other related sites).Based on the above basic ideas of structuralism, we can understand that business organizations exist in our diverse and complex social systems; entrepreneurs, as the most important elements of organizations, who also exist in this diverse and complex social system. If the guiding ideology confines to "methodological individualism", excludes other social factors'and social structure's impart, regards the behaviors of entrepreneurs as isolated and low socialization human actions, it will be very hard to convince others that the actions of private enterprises and entrepreneurs would be explained well.As is well known to us, for special conditions, China's private enterprises have certain special properties compared to the state-owned enterprises. Private enterprise owners and senior managers naturally show different properties from the state-owned enterprise managers. The explicit expression of the special condition is that China is a relationship-oriented society, which is widely accepted. According to Hsu (1985), for Chinese, the key of being human is handling relationships. Everyone achieves spiritual and interpersonal balance to keep it at a satisfactory level, which is "psychological social equilibrium" (Hsu,1985) model of Chinese. That is what we always call "being a man" or "learn to be a man" (Hwang,2006). What we call "learn to be a man" and "build good relations with others" is to establishing and maintaining a social network, particularly friendship network, by which it will provide a helping hand in time when you in the face of all kinds of trouble. If we take social relations as the breakthrough point, we can clearly observe that because of the particular business environment, private entrepreneurs have more profound understanding of the importance of social relations than common people. Therefore, undoubtedly, social network theory is a valid key to analyze enterprises' management behaviors of China's private entrepreneurs.In this paper, network analysis is used for analyzing social relations network of private entrepreneurs. Social network analysis is a suit of theories and methods to analyze social structures. The basic view is that the social ties between individuals and organizations are regarded as a social network and the whole society is a great system consistent of these networks (Scott,1991; Zhao, Luo, 2007). The purpose of social network analysis is that by using some concepts, it would be explained how the network restricts certain types of social behaviors or why some certain social behaviors have taken place. Many researches study it combined with "relations" to directly observe the direct and indirect ties among actors, and with the concepts of network density, intensity, scope, symmetry and others, the behavior and professor of study subjects would be observed (Emirbayer,1994).The social network of private entrepreneurs observed in this paper has individual centers. In other words, private entrepreneurs are centers; they extend their social networks widely. Using individual social network to measure social capital is a prevailing research method. In empirical studies, the measurement of social capital at the individual level is generally focused on two aspects:On the one hand, it is an overall measurement of the resources for personal calls and embedded in personal networks, that focuses on examination the individual status of holding social capital; on the other hand, it exams the actual mobilization of social capital, i.e., examining individual's use of social capital (Lin,1999; Zhao, 2002; Zhao, Luo,2007). This study following the usual method has a general description about the social networks of the investigated entrepreneurs. At the same time the use of social capital is also investigated.Accordingly, this paper arranged the structure.Chapter I is introduction. In this paper, it bases on the fact that private enterprises went through tortuous development in the course of three decades of reform and opening up. The healthy and rapid development of them has great influence on the nation and the people. Thus, this study is of special theoretical and practical significance, and it emphasizes the theoretical foundation and legitimacy of the use of social network theory and using the analysis methods to analyze private entrepreneurs' social network.Chapter II is the literature review. In this chapter, the emerging and development of social relations, social resources and social capital theory is sorted out comprehensively. The China's well-known scholars such as Fei Xiaotong, Lin Yutang, Qian Mu and Liang Shuming, whose study about the China's social characters and the seminal study of social relations is displayed adequately as well as Taiwan and overseas Chinese scholars'. In addition, the review also pays sufficient attention to social capital literature. It is also worth mentioning that the review concerns about the positive and negative effects of social networks and social capital that is a clear distinction between the scholars who just pay attention to the positive effect. By sorting out the existing research and identifying the lack of them, the following study is logically guided.Chapter III links above and establishes theoretical basis for this article. In this chapter, resource dependence theory is the initial point, and it theoretically explains why private entrepreneurs pay special attention to build, keep and make use of the social relations and social capital. Thus, the main hypotheses are established.It enters into the study from the fourth chapter. This chapter focuses on description the individual network of private entrepreneurs.Chapter V analyzes the role of social capital in private venture. Through investigate the business'start-ups phase of the "three preparations" and "four supports", we Mould observe that different networks have different munitions in the business start-ups phase that proves the preceding hypotheses.Chapter VI examines the role of social networks in the internal management of private sectors. This paper august that networking formed within the enterprise, According to the logic of human relations to manage in order to maintain the enterprise's internal operation, which is the most important feature of social relations network's operation. This paper by describing the composition of the core layer, the criteria for selection executives and the impact of enterprises' major policy decisions, it is finally verified. The criterion for selection executives has been attached much importance, which shows that the owners' degree of rationality and science has been greatly improved.Chapter VII discusses the status of private entrepreneurs making use of outside relational network resource from production support, management support and marketing support three aspects. combination the previous two chapters, we can understand that social networks play a unique role in the business start-up, internal management and external support. A preliminary outline of the networks' operation in private enterprises has been formed.Two special studies are achieved in the next two chapters. The aim is to deeply research the role of social capital in some special aspects. chapter VIII discusses relationship-based financing in private enterprises. It finds that SMEs short of fund through multi-frequency interaction, they build and keep good relations with banks; good relations between banks and enterprises enhance mutual trust, reduce business difficulty to obtain financing from banks. The relationship between banks and enterprises rely on business mutual benefit and personal friendship to safeguard.The vision expands to international markets in chapter IX. Many private enterprises are involved in international business. If social relations have impact on the international strategy of the private sector, it would be a more powerful proof of the social capital's strong penetration. Studies have shown that the private sector's foreign trade business and its social networks embed in each other. In the course of engaging in international business, surveyed business executives not only recognize the importance of social relationships, but also focus on construction and maintenance relationships with trade partners in practice. The study of this chapter provides the empirical basis for the establishment of "social relations-foreign trade mutual setting model". It shows that social relations network theory Mould commendably explains the private enterprises' business behaviors.Chapter ten is the last chapter; it discusses that establishing and maintaining social networks have to pay a cost as well as making use of it. Besides that, it is important that although the text in favor of the private sector making use of social relationships, it does not mean that this article agree the abuse of it. This article discusses the cost of access to and utilization it as well as other negative impacts, and related cases Mould support it. We must point out that the study of the social capital cost and the negative impacts is an important contribution.From above research, the main conclusion obtained in this study is as follows:1. The owners of private enterprises to establish, maintain and make use of social networks are determined by the real-world social and economic lives, which will not transfer with human will.2. Social capital plays a very important role in the survival of the start-up private enterprises. Particularly, in the aspect of psychological preparation, product selection preparation and capital reserve, relatives and other kinship give the largest support. Besides kinship, friendship also provides great support for private entrepreneurs in every stage.3. The role of social networks has been proven in the internal management of the private sector. However, in the present criteria of selection executives, capability is much more important than "ties". This is a rational and scientific performance and is the most important sustainable guarantee for the development of enterprises.4. Private enterprises also depend on the external relations in their growth process. In this respect, the business partner and personal friend in the external networks is the main source of social capital. At the same time, the party's and government's leaders will provide support as a friend.5. Relational financing is an important way of solving the bottleneck problem (short of funds) of private enterprises. Private enterprises pay attention to establish and build good relations with banks, which will enhance the mutual trust degree and reduce the difficulty of financing.6. Social networks play a unique role in the international strategy of private sectors. Through the international business case studies, it finds that foreign trade embeds in relationships between private enterprises and trade partners. Strong ties are market. Business volume has positive correlation with the close degree between the transaction parties. The trade risk has reverse correlation with the level of relations.good relations result in low risk, vice versa.7. For private enterprises, the operation of social networks needs cost. The abuse of social capital will lead to the appearance of the potential function; finally, the positive function will change into negative munitions. The abuse of social capital is always an important fuse for personnel mistakes, enterprise corruption, the daily management confusion, internal conflicts in corporate leadership, debt dispute, diversification mistakes and others that leading to mutation corporation'lives.
Keywords/Search Tags:social network, social resources, social capital, entrepreneurs
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