Field Experiments in Social Networks and Entrepreneurship

Abstract

A significant body of research has shown that social network position and structure are important for entrepreneurship. Networks impact both an entrepreneur’s decision to pursue an idea and the performance of their business by stratifying people’s access to information, resources and contacts. However, many open questions remain regarding how entrepreneurs' networks come to be that are essential for conceptualizing the relationship between networks and entrepreneurship. This symposium makes progress on this with six presentations on how decisions or strategies employed by potential entrepreneurs during the early ideation stage influence how their networks evolve and the success of their ventures. These papers show the importance of factors like training, individual behaviors, relational matching and demographics in enabling or constraining entrepreneurs' ability to construct a productive network and extract value from that network. In addition, as social networks research is often beset by endogeneity concerns, these papers all use field experiments to study network dynamics in entrepreneurship. Social Skills Improve Business Performance: Evidence from an RCT with Entrepreneurs in Togo Presenter: Stefan Dimitriadis; U. of Toronto, Rotman School of Management Presenter: Rembrand Michael Koning; Harvard Business School The Value of Commitment for Strategic Decision-Making: Evidence from UK Micro-Entrepreneurs Presenter: Chiara Spina; INSEAD Presenter: Elena Novelli; Bayes Business School (formerly Cass) Networking and Entrepreneurial Success: The Role of Self-Regulation in the Network Referral Process Presenter: Jacqueline Lane; Harvard U. Presenter: Jeffrey T Polzer; Harvard U. Presenter: Karim R. Lakhani; Harvard U. How Do Organizational Collectivism and Individualism Impact Student Teams’ Performance? Presenter: Zhuoxuan Li; Massachusetts Institute of Technology Presenter: Anyada Assavabhokhin; U. of Michigan, Ann Arbor Presenter: Charles Eric Eesley; Stanford School of Engineering Consider the Learner: Can Entrepreneurs Identify Sources of Advice? Presenter: Ethan Poskanzer; Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Gender Gap in Financing and Third-Order Inference: Experimental Evidence from Turkey Presenter: Salman Alibhai; World Bank Presenter: Solene Delecourt; Stanford GSB Presenter: Aletheia Donald; World Bank