From opportunity recognition to the start-up phase: the moderating role of family and friends-based entrepreneurial social networks

This study analyzes whether entrepreneurial intention mediates between opportunity recognition and the start-up phase of a business. It also sheds light on how the access to entrepreneurial social networks moderates this mediated relationship, as well as exploring which type of entrepreneurial social network (family- or friends-based) helps most in advancing the business project through the start-up process. The study uses original data on 616 university students enrolled in a variety of campuses and degrees in the central-southern area of Spain. The data reveal that entrepreneurial intention partially mediates the opportunity recognition–start-up phase relationship. Importantly, it reveals that a positive effect of this state of awareness on the start-up phase via entrepreneurial intention is stronger when someone in the social network owns a venture, especially if this person belongs to the potential entrepreneur’s family-based social network. The findings suggest that opportunity recognition is enough to advance through the start-up process, while also revealing that courses or curricular activities oriented towards fostering entrepreneurship should facilitate students’ access to entrepreneurial social networks. This paper is one of the few that helps better understand the path an individual should follow in order to advance through the start-up process once a market opportunity has been recognized. As a novel contribution to the literature, this paper elucidates how entrepreneurial social networks can help bridge the entrepreneurial intention-behavior gap and shows that access to family-based entrepreneurial social networks has a greater impact in this regard than friends-based entrepreneurial social networks.