The ties that (un)bind: Social networks and entrepreneurship in high -technology industries.

Together with human capital and financial capital, social capital is seen as completing the triumvirate of resources required for individual and organizational achievement, including in the context of entrepreneurship. I examine the ways in which social networks are used by entrepreneurs and organizations at distinct stages of their evolution---at the early stages of venture creation and as public corporations---and the effects that the networks have on performance at these stages. This research consists of three studies using narratives, surveys, and archival data. In the first study, I conduct in-depth interviews with 38 entrepreneurs and find that entrepreneurs select their relationships based on the level of uncertainty surrounding their ventures at different stages of development and their perceived accessibility of the relationships at these stages. In the second study, I use propositions derived from the first study to develop a model predicting (1) the effect of entrepreneurial stage (the start-up and the expansion stages) on network characteristics, consisting of network density (level of connectedness among members of the network), heterogeneity, and co-ethnicity (extent to which the members of the networks share the same ethnicity as the entrepreneur) and (2) the effect of these network characteristics on performance, conceptualized as amount of funding obtained at each stage. I then test the model using data collected through a survey of 91 Indian and Chinese immigrant entrepreneurs and 60 native-born white American entrepreneurs, highlighting differences between these groups. I find that the network characteristics as well as their effect vary by entrepreneurial stage and by immigrant/ethnic status. In the third and final study, using a new sample consisting of 362 public corporations in Silicon Valley, I predict organizational failure during the stock market crash of the year 2000. I find that the level of connectedness among the members of the organizational networks have an inverse U-shaped relationship with the propensity to fail. By distinguishing between entrepreneurial stages as well as entrepreneur characteristics and by investigating the effects as well as the formation of networks along multiple dimensions, my studies collectively extend the literature on social networks, entrepreneurship, and immigrant business activity.PhDLabor relationsManagementSocial SciencesSocial structureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/123997/2/3110103.pd