A Study of Entrepreneurship Network Development

There is broad consensus among entrepreneurship scholars of the need to develop

a more complete and integrated understanding of network development and change

processes. This paper presents a study of entrepreneurship network development that

quantifies network capital and network structure as the firm grows. The focus is on the

transformation of entrepreneurship networks and how they develop over time. This

research addresses an important gap in the entrepreneurship literature, where network

relationships and network structure are simultaneously explored, and the dependent

variable is the network itself. By drawing on the proposed arguments of Larson and Starr

(1993) and Hite and Hesterly (2001), this study proposes integrating these two theoretical

models to gain a more cohesive perspective of the evolution of the entrepreneurs social

network. This would provide scholars the ability to evaluate the various and often

conflicting theoretical arguments, through micro- and macro-level lens, assessing changes

in network ties and patterns of network structure. This research also tests for the moderating

effects of industry environment, using a five-item scale to measure environmental

dynamism. Findings from this research provide limited support for the propositions

presented in the earlier literature, where the focus is on off-line networks. This research

provides evidence that the rapid growth of online social network platforms and the

interplay between offline and online networks have resulted in changing paradigms that

require consideration of new theory that reflects the current business environment, where

online networks have assumed a much greater role and the entrepreneur is less dependent

on the resources and relationships provided by their offline networks.