"You Get What You Give, or Do You? An Examination of Resource Sharing among Entrepreneurs"

Abstract

This paper enhances our understanding of differential benefits to actors from social ties by examining the effect of both diffuse and, what I define as, localized status characteristics on the resources actors receive from their alters. It is well established that while networks provide actors with benefits, these benefits are not equal for men and women with female actors receiving fewer, and less valuable, resources. Extant research has attributed gender differences in network benefits to network structure, arguing that men and women are embedded in fundamentally different networks. To the extent that the benefits of social ties are contingent on an actor’s ability to mobilize the resources possessed by alters (Smith 2005, 2007; Marin 2011), this focus on network structure provides a limited explanation. This paper draws on status theory, specifically status characteristics theory, to address this gap. Specifically, I examine whether particular status characteristics result in differences in an actor’s ability to garner resources from alters. Using a unique research setting of complete networks of entrepreneurs, I am able to compare men and women in the same professions who are embedded in the same networks to examine how various sources of status affect the resources an actor receives. This study finds that while women receive fewer referrals than men, this difference is 1) moderated when men and women in the same profession are compared, and 2) mediated (in some cases completely) when men and women with equivalent localized status characteristics are compared. These findings suggest that localized status characteristics reduce the salience of gender for determining the relative benefits actors receive from social ties.