Benefitting from alter resources: network diffusion and SME survival

Abstract

This study examines the usefulness of alter resources for the survival of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) in Ghana. We utilize data from two rounds of poultry SME network surveys and accompanying SME attributes between 2014 and 2015. We focused on the resources that diffuse to SMEs from alters and the mechanism through which these resources diffuse. We observed that alter markets and technological resources are significant for the survival of SMEs in our sample. We also explored the effect of variations in alter resources along the lines of the type of resource being diffused and found that market resource spill overs have a positive effect while technological resource variations have a negative effect, but these do not rise to significance. Finally, we assessed the impact of the mechanism through which the resources are diffused and found that both direct and indirect tie mechanisms have a positive effect on survival but the effect of direct ties was higher than that of indirect ties.