Entrepreneurship and Social Capital. How does the Entrepreneur's Social Network change in the early moments of the new venture?

Abstract

The literature on the importance of Social Capital on the entrepreneurial process is still developing. Our work aims at describing how the social network of the nascent entrepreneur can facilitate the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities and their exploitation. In particular we first recap the relevant findings of scholars on the topics of entrepreneurship and social capital separately, and subsequently highlight the importance of social ties to foster the alertness to opportunities and to enable the mobilization of resources, both financial and not, that are a prerequisite to entrepreneurial success. Our objective is to determine the evolution of the social network of the entrepreneur in the early stages of his new venture in order to determine if and how some social ties can prove themselves more useful in overcoming the difficulties typical of the first years of a start-up. We pursue this objective by means of three case studies of different young ventures, after collecting the necessary data through in-field interviews we propose our own findings and we determine if these are in agreement to the theoretical framework laid by previous researchers.