Raising capital: Relational practices and social capital in Silicon Valley entrepreneurship (California)

This dissertation investigates how entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley created, maintained and mobilized their social capital, in the process of raising financial resources for their start-ups. Most academic literature on entrepreneurship depicts a thin and undersocialized view of the work of entrepreneurs, stressing individual difference and environmental influences, but neglecting the role of social relations. The structural approach to the study of social networks provides a rather static portrait of the role of social capital and needs to be supplemented by a more in-depth understanding of the process through which individual construct their networks.; To shed light on this process, in this dissertation I explored how entrepreneurs approached the problem of building their social networks in the process of raising financial capital in Silicon Valley. From the accounts I collected I identified three stages in the process of network bricolage: initiation, cultivation and transformation. In each stage, entrepreneurs were engaging in a number of “relational practices” which are embedded in the cultural and institutional milieu of the region and constitute an essential component of entrepreneurial work.; The findings of this study suggest that even when entrepreneurs did not receive funding as a result of their network bricolage, just by engaging in the process they benefited. Through conversations with more experienced entrepreneurs and potential investors entrepreneurs learned about the funding environment, understood how to “sell” their idea to the funding community, but also significantly improved their ideas and their business plans. Finally network bricolage provided entrepreneurs with the raw material to craft, develop and test their own entrepreneurial identity. The richness provided by the Silicon Valley entrepreneurship community facilitated this process, provided newcomers with role models and sped up a process that would take much longer if these opportunities were lacking.; The concept of relational practices developed in this dissertation also suggests that what entrepreneurs did in the process of building their networks was shaped by the cultural patterns and schema that constitute the fabric of the local community, thus emphasizing the need to explore the role of local communities in the entrepreneurial process.