Family embeddedness at the onset of the entrepreneurial opportunity

Abstract

Entrepreneurs encounter many difficulties when creating a business venture. They possess, however, many resources that help them during this process. This paper argues that family embeddedness, the values, norms and attitudes of a family influencing an individual, plays an important role in the venture creation process. In interviews with entrepreneurs, this exploratory study explains how that influence from their family life provides them with idiosyncratic resources rooted in social networks and social capital. Furthermore, it is shown that both trust and trustworthiness allow the entrepreneurs access to those resources at a lower cost and with reduced uncertainty.