IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04850409.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Social capital of entrepreneurs and small firm performance : A meta-analysis of contextual and methodological moderators

Author

Listed:
  • Wouter Stam

    (HKUST - Hong Kong University of Science and Technology)

  • Souren Arzlanian

    (VU - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam [Amsterdam])

  • Tom Elfring

    (VU - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam [Amsterdam])

Abstract

Despite a surge of studies examining the role of social capital in the entrepreneurial process, no quantitative assessments exist of the empirical evidence to date. To resolve seemingly conflicting results, we conducted a meta-analysis of the link between entrepreneurs' personal networks and small firm performance and identify new moderators affecting this relationship. Analyses of 61 independent samples indicated that the social capital–performance link was positive and significant (rc = .211). Effect sizes of weak ties were smaller than those of structural holes, while network diversity had the largest positive effect on performance. Results also showed that the social capital–performance link depends on the age of small firms, the industry and institutional contexts in which they operate, and on the specific network or performance measures used. Based on these findings, we develop recommendations for future research on the contingent value of social capital for small firms.

Suggested Citation

  • Wouter Stam & Souren Arzlanian & Tom Elfring, 2014. "Social capital of entrepreneurs and small firm performance : A meta-analysis of contextual and methodological moderators," Post-Print hal-04850409, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04850409
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2013.01.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valérie François & Christophe Lafaye & Matthieu Belarouci, 2021. "The role of social capital in the growth of innovative nascent firms: the moderating effect of incubators," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 25(4/5), pages 326-345.
    2. Stone, Billy, 2017. "Exploring the Success and Failure of Small Business in Beckley, West Virginia," OSF Preprints 8xmt6_v1, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04850409. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.