Entrepreneurial community development: Longitudinal SNA of cross-promotional behavior

Abstract

Entrepreneurial communities can serve as important regimes of support necessary for enterprise growth and the creation of broader civic wealth. This research seeks to contribute to the existing literature on community entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial support mechanisms by explicating the development of a locally oriented entrepreneurial community. Leveraging a longitudinal application of social network analysis, this research provides a view of the evolving structure of an entrepreneurial community and the strategies employed by its members as it grew. Utilizing a ten-year data set of 7565 cross-promoting Facebook posts from 35 members of a locally oriented entrepreneurial community, we find that there is initially a heavy reliance on other members of the entrepreneurial, but this decreases and becomes more reciprocal over time as members establish their brands. The most central nodes within the community serve as marquee businesses-drawing in a range of customers-or are community events-serving as bridges across the community and attracting large numbers of customers to the area. These practices help members overcome one of greatest challenges new firms in rural locations face—the attraction of customers—and are important to the overall success of the community, particularly in the early years of entrepreneurial community development.