Embeddedness

About: Embeddedness is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4773 publications have been published within this topic receiving 229721 citations.

Transnational family networks and ethnic minority business development

Abstract: Purpose – This paper seeks to understand the role played by transnational family networks in ethnic minority business development.Design/methodology/approach – The Vietnamese nail‐care sector is taken as a case study. The research involved interviews with ten owner‐managers and four key informants involved in this industry in London. The analysis draws on concepts of “strong” and “weak” network ties and “mixed embeddedness” to explain why the Vietnamese continue to enter such a competitive sector.Findings – The results highlight the importance of transnational family networks within all aspects of the business and suggest that these links can sometimes provide a fertile source of new business ideas, but can equally limit innovation. The presence of innovative and well‐educated members within the entrepreneurs' “strong‐tie” network appeared to encourage more successful business development and diversification.Research limitations/implications – The research challenges the traditional “strong/weak” ties the...

The State, Internationalization, and Capitalist Diversity in Eastern Europe:

Abstract: This article contributes to the debate on varieties of capitalism in Eastern Europe in three ways First, four types of capitalist regimes that differ in particular institutional configurations and performances are empirically identified: the state-crafted neoliberalism of the Baltic States, the more directly world-market driven neoliberalism of the CIS countries, the embedded neoliberalism of the Visegrad countries, and neo-corporatism in Slovenia Second, the diversity of capitalist regimes – is explained as a result of the complex interplay of external factors – specifically world commodity and financial markets, international institutions and foreign direct investment – and different state capacities to implement reform choices Third, caution is given against an uncritical application of the dominant approach of comparative political economy, varieties of capitalism, since it is ill suited to study the emergence of institutions, their international embeddedness, and the semiperipheral charac

Innovation im Netz : Neue Zeiten für technische Innovationen: heterogen verteilt und interaktiv vernetzt

Abstract: The relationship between technological innovation and its institutional embeddedness is analysed within the theoretical framework of reflexive modernization and under the aspect of time in order to unterstand the actual frictions of innovation in Westem societies. The author hints to the paradox of innovation being at the same time creative and destructive, and argues that it is the particular embeddedness of innovative action that sets the tone and pace of technological change. The institutional split of technological development into science on the one hand and economy on the other has accelerated the speed of innovation in modernity, but at the same time has created new problems of synchronization between different times. It is illustrated that the up to now predominant modes of coordination, innovation via markets and innovation by organization, are losing ground not in spite of, but because of their success. A new type, innovation in the network, is emerging as a reaction to the shortcomings of its predecessors. Networks of innovation between heterogeneous actors are argued to become the basis of a post-Schumpeterian innovation regime.

Organizational embeddedness, turnover intentions, and voluntary turnover: The moderating effects of employee demographic characteristics and value orientations

Abstract: To explain why some employees who experience high embeddedness contemplate leaving their organizations and others do not, we examined the moderating effects of employee demographic characteristics (age and gender) and value orientations (individualism and risk aversion) between organizational embeddedness and turnover intentions. Turnover intentions were further expected to increase voluntary turnover. Data were collected from 643 full-time employees at three points in time over a 12-month time period in a wide range of organizations in Japan, a relatively low turnover context with little prior embeddedness research. Findings show that gender and risk aversion moderate the relationship between organizational embeddedness and turnover intentions, which in turn predict voluntary turnover.

Social Networks and Business Success: The Role of Subcultures in an African Context

Abstract: I Introduction DEVELOPING ECONOMIES TODAY ARE CHARACTERIZED BY dramatic changes in the direction of liberalization and globalization, not least in Africa. Business entrepreneurs have increased opportunities to enact their business environments and develop profitable enterprises with a wide geographical range. Obviously, opportunities are not equal for all, and we see clear tendencies toward increasing social differences with recent economic growth on the African continent. Local and small-scale entrepreneurs are easily marginalized in open competition with "alien" businesspeople (Kilby 1983) or foreign investors. In Sub-Saharan Africa, there are clear indications that enterprises owned by Asians and Europeans are bigger, more innovative, and faster growing than neighboring firms owned by native Africans (Ramachandran and Shah 1999). Also, differences are seen in business performance of entrepreneurs from various domestic ethnic groups. It is a recognized fact in socioeconomic research that social networks create social capital of importance for business development. Networks represent a means for entrepreneurs to reduce risks and transaction costs and improve access to business ideas, knowledge, and capital. A social network consists of a series of formal and informal ties between the central actor and other actors in a circle of acquaintances. Social networks are channels through which entrepreneurs get access to the necessary resources for business startup, growth, and success. Social capital is defined as an attribute created in the interaction between people, which increases the strength and value of personal qualities such as intelligence and work experience, and represents a resource for collective as well as individual action (Coleman 1988). Social capital is manifested in norms and networks that enable people to act collectively (Woolcock 1998). According to Lin (1999), the value of a person's social capital is determined by qualities of her or his social network. We shall argue that social networks are also determined by an initial basis of social capital. The national cultures of the East African countries are fragmented, and ethnicity, religion, and class are only three common bases for faction. Culture, in our perspective, may be usefully defined as a collective subjectivity: a shared set of values, norms, and beliefs. Subcultures within national African contexts are probably of vital importance for the development of value systems, trust, and social networks, and thereby also for business success. In this paper, focus is set on social networks and business success among a sample of small-scale entrepreneurs operating in the wood business in the coastal town of Tanga, Tanzania. The objective of our research is to indicate any correlation between sociocultural contexts, personal relationships, and the ability to enact one's environment and make a success in business. Complementing theoretical perspectives on social embeddedness (Nobria and Gulati 1994), we argue that entrepreneurs also have an opportunity to develop social relations and to modify cultural bonds. Enacting the business environment, however, also needs resources and certain cognitive frames. We adopt a holistic approach and theoretical triangulation when trying to empirically integrate the entrepreneurial process and its context. The aim is a "combination of theoretically creative and empirically grounded" analysis (Zafirovski 1999, p. 588), closer to "story-telling" than the mathematical line of economic sociology. Few studies are made specifically of the role of social networks in African business, and we use a qualitative methodology to expand theory, rather than proving by statistics the existing theory. The paper is organized in six parts. After this introduction follows a brief presentation of findings on relations between social networks and business success, mostly from Europe and the United States. …