This research seminar is open to Business School Faculty and PhD students.
Abstract:
Extant research on entrepreneurs’ social capital has not paid adequate attention to how entrepreneurs form new ties.
In this paper, we introduce the concept of networking style, defined as the repertoire of actions relating to how entrepreneurs search for new ties and develop them. Using inductive research methods we identify five constitutive dimensions of entrepreneurs’ networking styles, namely: Deepening Search, Broadening Search, Pacing, Culling and Embedding.
We develop and validate multi-item scales to measure these style dimensions. We demonstrate that entrepreneurs’ actions along the five networking style dimensions do not vary independently – rather, we show that entrepreneurs’ networking action patterns fall into just three meaningful and robust clusters defined by different configurations of the five constitutive dimensions.
We then shed light on possible antecedents that predict memberships in those clusters. Specifically, we show that prior boundary spanning work experience is more predictive of cluster membership than personality traits. Implications for entrepreneurship and social network theory are discussed.
Biography
Balagopal Vissa is an assistant professor of entrepreneurship located at INSEAD’s Asia campus in Singapore. Find out more at http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/faculty/profiles/bvissa/