Empirical Disaggregation of Social Networks: A Study of Ethnic Professional Associations and Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley

Abstract

While the literature of social networks and entrepreneurship has stated the importance of social networks for entrepreneurship, many past empirical studies tended to measure social networks only at the aggregated level. This led to a failure to capture heterogeneity or nonredundancy of networks, and sometimes resulted in empirically confusing verdicts regarding the contribution of social networks to entrepreneurship at a statistical level. We argue that disaggregation of networks is critical and will construct networks at a refined, specific level. With alarge-scale dataset of 2,273 individuals, we test the link between start-up activities and Chinese and Indian ethnic professional associations in Silicon Valley. Our multivariate models find that only a few networks with heterogeneous members correlate positively with entrepreneurship. The results indicate that social networks, a powerful and widely used theoretical construct, are still underdeveloped in both conceptualization and operationalization, and that we have to further develop effective measurement techniques.

Resume

Bien que les etudes que 1’on trouve daps la litterature fassent etat de 1’importance des reseaux sociaux pour 1’entrepreneuriat, plusieurs etudes empiriques anterieures mesuraient les reseaux sociaux seulement de fa∼on agregee. Par consequent, celles-ci ne prenaient pas en consideration 1’heterogeneite ou la non-redondance des reseaux, ce qui pouvait mener a des conclusions empiriquement confuses d’un point de vue statistique quant a la contribution des reseaux sociaux a 1’entrepreneuriat. Cette etude a grande echelle, examinant des donnees provenant de 2273 individus, repose sur le principe que la desagregation des reseaux est dune importance capitale. Paz consequent, des categories de reseaux plus raffinees se basant sur des criteres specifiques ont ete definies. L’etude examine le lien entre les demarrages d’entreprises et les associations professionnelles ethniques chinoises et indiennes daps le Silicon Valley. Les modeles multivaries revelent que seulement quelques reseaux avec un effectif heterogene ont une correlation positive avec 1’entrepreneuriat. Ces resultats indiquent que la conceptualisation des reseaux sociaux est sous-developpee, bien qu’ils soient un puissant concept theorique souvent utilise, qu’ils sont sous-utilises daps 1’operationnalisation de mesures destinees a evaluer 1’effet de ceuxci. Il est donc important de developper des techniques de mesure efficace.