| While a great deal has been published about the importance of social networks in securing essential resources for firm formation, almost no empirical work has looked in detail at how entrepreneurs---and particularly those entrepreneurs just beginning a significant venture creation effort---identify, create, and maintain the ties they hope will provide value. This dissertation was thus designed as an exploratory, empirical, and longitudinal effort to address the following questions: (1) How do entrepreneurs form the network ties to support resource acquisition? (2) How do the networks that emerge support progress in new venture creation? (3) What drives the perceived value of network ties for nascent entrepreneurs? Guiding these questions was a desire to contribute an enhanced, data-based understanding of tie identification, cultivation, and formation; dynamic network processes; and network management to the existing literature on social networks in new venturing. Further, because the dissertation piloted the use of a unique online data collection methodology, it revealed the implemented power of online data collection modalities in researching complex, dynamic phenomena such as social network formation and evolution. The dissertation includes a taxonomy of network management behaviors and a discussion of those behaviors' relationship to new venture progress---with proactive and consistent network maintenance, cultivation, and exploitation recognized as signaling an enhanced likelihood of new venture success. Additionally, the dissertation includes a discussion of returns on social capital investment, with entrepreneurs reported to value referrals despite not deriving real referral-based value in terms of acquired resources. |
