A theoretical and empirical assessment of the social capital of nascent entrepreneurial teams

Social capital has been regarded as a driving force in organizational emergence and growth. The growing body of literature in social capital and entrepreneurship studies how social capital provides a medium for the exchange of critical resources necessary to firm founding and success. It investigates how entrepreneurs draw upon their existing social networks and construct new ones in the process of obtaining knowledge, resources, and support for their projects. Although the conclusions of this stream of literature are very promising, most of the conducted studies concern to the network structures of single entrepreneurs, skipping the study of the social capital of entrepreneurial teams. In view of the fact that ventures started by teams are on average more successful than those started by single individuals, studying the social capital of entrepreneurial teams emerge as a necessary and auguring topic. In particular, the understanding of the role played by the team\u27s social capital in the nascent stages of venture formation provides a starting point to the study of the role of teams\u27 social capital along the whole entrepreneurial cycle. In this vein, the purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the effects of social capital in nascent entrepreneurial projects carried out by entrepreneurial teams. For this, it develops a testable framework that integrates different network mechanisms acknowledged to be responsible for the creation of social capital. Specifically, it integrates the bridging approach that bases the benefits of social capital on a sparse and diverse network, and the bonding approach that instead bases the benefits of social capital on a dense and cohesive network. By surveying 74 nascent entrepreneurial teams, this dissertation explores how (1) the team\u27s external social capital, which is based on the diversity of ties that the members of the team have with outside parties; and (2) the team\u27s internal social capital, which reflects the communication patterns and the feelings between the members, impact the advancement of a business idea. Additionally, given the particular characteristics of nascent entrepreneurial teams, it proposes a trade-off between the external and internal dimensions and explores the effects of increases in the internal social capital on teams\u27 performance