Cattle Marketing Social Network among the Rural Native Community, Sarawak, Malaysia: A Qualitative Research

Social network is a very important aspect for the farmers to find the customers, finding a good offer price, finding a wide market and dominates the local market of their products. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to examine the types of social network used by these farmers in finding market. This study was conducted at District of Serian, Sarawak, Malaysia. This research employed abductive research strategy where the types of social network are constructed by the cattle farmers themselves based on their own experience and knowledge after being involved in cattle farming for 10 years. Data were collected using in-depth interviews and non-participant observation. Most of the interviews carried out took between two to three hours; however, some of the interviews took quite a long time. Sample size in this research was determined based on data saturation. Therefore, a total of nine people were chosen as informants in the study using purposive sampling and snowball sampling. Validity and reliability of the research data were determined using member check approach. All the interviews was transcribed and formatted to be entered into the Nvivo database and will be used to create categories and to index the data. Findings of the study showed that seven types of social network were used by the cattle farmers in the rural areas in marketing their livestock, namely through networks of family ties, friends, friends of friends, advertisements, radio, type of language and wholesalers. The seven types of social network are viewed to have helped them in maintaining their status quo as successful cattle farmers. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s1p26