Size, Diversity and Components in the Network Around an Entrepreneur: Shaped by Culture and Shaping Embeddedness of Firm Relations

The network around an entrepreneur is conceptualized as having structural properties of size, diversity and a configuration of components. The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has surveyed 61 countries with 88,562 entrepreneurs who reported networking with advisors. Cluster analysis of their relations revealed five components: a private network of advice relations with spouse, parents, other family and friends; a work-place network of boss, coworkers, starters and mentors; a professional network of accountants, lawyers, banks, investors, counselors and researchers; a market network of competitors, collaborators, suppliers and customers; and an international network of advice relations with persons abroad and persons who have come from abroad. Entrepreneurs’ networking is unfolding in a culture of traditionalism versus secular-rationalism. Traditionalism is hypothesized to reduce diversity and size of networks and specifically reduce networking in the public sphere, but to enhance networking in the private sphere. Cultural effects on networking are tested as macro-to-micro effects on networking in two-level mixed linear models with fixed effects of traditionalism and individual-level variables and random effects of country. We find that traditionalism reduces diversity and overall networking and specifically networking in the work-place, professions, market and internationally, but enhances private networking. These cultural effects are larger than effects of attributes of the entrepreneur. The personal network around the entrepreneur provides an embedding of the business relations around the entrepreneurs’ firm which are especially facilitated by the entrepreneur’s networks in the public sphere.