Change and the development of entrepreneurial networks over time: a processual perspective

Abstract

Although it is now well established that networks contribute to entrepreneurship by extending the individual entrepreneurial asset base of human, social, market, financial and technical capacity, little work, empirical or theoretical, has examined the dynamics of networking processes in a temporal framework. Drawing on evidence from three longitudinal case studies of entrepreneurs operating in the oil industry in the North East of Scotland, this paper presents an extensive empirical investigation into network transformation over time. We are thus able to chart networks in their historical contingency. This chronological lens allows us to view patterns in network continuity and change and enables us to develop a rich conceptual framework. The study demonstrates that networks are vital living organisms, changing, growing and developing over time. Yet set in their history, networks are much more than an extension of the entrepreneurial asset base. Our data shows how a reconceptualization of the nature of networking is called for; one which privileges an understanding of the relational dynamic as a structural configuration representing the social construction of the entrepreneurial environment. Thus our conceptualization proposes that networks actually create the environment, as it is understood and operated by the entrepreneur, and that consequently the networking process is the enactment of the environment.

Keywords:

• entrepreneurship
• networks
• change
• process
• entrepreneurial environment.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank Professor Bengt Johannisson and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and discussion of this paper.

Notes

Notes

1.  This approach is the opposite of that adopted by Uzzi (1996, 1997), who explicitly chose a conservative environment where economic theory suggested market mechanisms would be the dominant governance and exchange mechanism. Unlike Uzzi, our main objective was richness in data collection, rather than demonstration of the pervasiveness of network exchanges per se.