How does the social capital of venture capitalists (VCs) affect the funding of start-ups? Extant entrepreneurship literature conceptualizes a substitute effect between the social and financial capital that new firms attain from their investors. On the contrary, by building on the rich social...

Social networks matter in the innovation processes of young and small firms, since ‘innovation does not exist in a vacuum (Van De Ven, 1986: 601).’ The contacts a firm has could both generate advantages for further innovation and growth, and disadvantages leading to inertia and stagnation....

Depending on the kind of literature networks in general, and Chinese networks in particular seem to be different phenomena, or are explained by different factors leaving the interested public puzzled. Whether Chinese networks resemble Clans, Clubs, or Mafia-kind of organizations is as much...

Chinese entrepreneurs innovatively manage organisations in the absence of strong economic institutions, under conditions of high environmental and technological uncertainty. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study designed to investigate how Chinese entrepreneurs can be successful...

This paper is part of a broader research project that aims to analyse the emerging private business sector in China by focusing on three topics.

In this paper, we draw on the literature about gift exchange to suggest a conceptualization of the emergence, maintenance and use of social capital (SK). We thus open up the black box of how social relations are established, and are able to indicate what can be meaningfully ascribed to social...