IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-00915173.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Generating Business Referrals for SMEs: The Contingent Value of CEOs' Social Capital

Author

Listed:
  • Barthelemy Chollet

    (EESC-GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management)

  • Mickaël Géraudel

    (CEROM - Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche sur les Organisations et le Management - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School)

  • Caroline Danièle Mothe

    (IREGE - Institut de Recherche en Gestion et en Economie - USMB [Université de Savoie] [Université de Chambéry] - Université Savoie Mont Blanc)

Abstract

We examine how small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) chief executive officers' (CEOs) social capital (as measured by strength of ties and structural holes) can help them bring business to their firms through the spread of positive referrals. Based on a sample of 408 French SME CEOs, we find a direct effect of social capital. Such effect is contingent on the CEO's personality, with social capital being most beneficial to CEOs with low levels of conscientiousness. CEOs' social ties facilitate the distortion of information, thereby leading personal contacts to give referrals to and endorse a focal CEO, even in the presence of negative signals, such as low conscientiousness.

Suggested Citation

  • Barthelemy Chollet & Mickaël Géraudel & Caroline Danièle Mothe, 2013. "Generating Business Referrals for SMEs: The Contingent Value of CEOs' Social Capital," Post-Print hal-00915173, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00915173
    DOI: 10.1111/jsbm.12034
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00915173v2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-00915173v2/document
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/jsbm.12034?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philip Cooke & Nick Clifton & Mercedes Oleaga, 2005. "Social capital, firm embeddedness and regional development," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(8), pages 1065-1077.
    2. Andrew D. Gershoff & Gita Venkataramani Johar, 2006. "Do You Know Me? Consumer Calibration of Friends' Knowledge," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 32(4), pages 496-503, March.
    3. Jean‐Pierre Gilly & Frédéric Wallet, 2001. "Forms of Proximity, Local Governance and the Dynamics of Local Economic Spaces: The Case of Industrial Conversion Processes," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 553-570, September.
    4. M. Bensaou & Erin Anderson, 1999. "Buyer-Supplier Relations in Industrial Markets: When Do Buyers Risk Making Idiosyncratic Investments?," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(4), pages 460-481, August.
    5. Sarah L. Jack, 2005. "The Role, Use and Activation of Strong and Weak Network Ties: A Qualitative Analysis," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(6), pages 1233-1259, September.
    6. Lianxi Zhou & Wei-ping Wu & Xueming Luo, 2007. "Internationalization and the performance of born-global SMEs: the mediating role of social networks," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 38(4), pages 673-690, July.
    7. Fromhold-Eisebith, Martina & Eisebith, Gunter, 2005. "How to institutionalize innovative clusters? Comparing explicit top-down and implicit bottom-up approaches," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1250-1268, October.
    8. Claude Courlet & Bernard Pecqueur & Bernard Soulage, 1993. "Industrie et dynamiques de territoires," Revue d'Économie Industrielle, Programme National Persée, vol. 64(1), pages 7-21.
    9. Susan Bartholomew & Anne D. Smith, 2006. "Improving Survey Response Rates from Chief Executive Officers in Small Firms: The Importance of Social Networks," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 30(1), pages 83-96, January.
    10. Simon Rodan & Charles Galunic, 2004. "More than network structure: how knowledge heterogeneity influences managerial performance and innovativeness," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(6), pages 541-562, June.
    11. Bill McEvily & Akbar Zaheer, 1999. "Bridging ties: a source of firm heterogeneity in competitive capabilities," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(12), pages 1133-1156, December.
    12. Seong-Kook Kim & Min-Jeong Kim, 2007. "Mentoring Network and Self-Monitoring Personality," management revue. Socio-economic Studies, Rainer Hampp Verlag, vol. 18(1), pages 42-54.
    13. Paul Ellis, 2000. "Social Ties and Foreign Market Entry," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 31(3), pages 443-469, September.
    14. Balagopal Vissa & Aya S. Chacar, 2009. "Leveraging ties: the contingent value of entrepreneurial teams' external advice networks on Indian software venture performance," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(11), pages 1179-1191, November.
    15. Scott Shane & Daniel Cable, 2002. "Network Ties, Reputation, and the Financing of New Ventures," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 48(3), pages 364-381, March.
    16. Brian Uzzi & Ryon Lancaster, 2003. "Relational Embeddedness and Learning: The Case of Bank Loan Managers and Their Clients," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 383-399, April.
    17. Ciavarella, Mark A. & Buchholtz, Ann K. & Riordan, Christine M. & Gatewood, Robert D. & Stokes, Garnett S., 2004. "The Big Five and venture survival: Is there a linkage?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 465-483, July.
    18. Seevers, Matthew T. & Skinner, Steven J. & Dahlstrom, Robert, 2010. "Performance Implications of a Retail Purchasing Network: The Role of Social Capital," Journal of Retailing, Elsevier, vol. 86(4), pages 310-321.
    19. Stephen P. Borgatti & Rob Cross, 2003. "A Relational View of Information Seeking and Learning in Social Networks," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 49(4), pages 432-445, April.
    20. Elliot Carlisle & Dave Flynn, 2005. "Small Business Survival In China: Guanxi, Legitimacy, And Social Capital," Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship (JDE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 10(01), pages 79-96.
    21. Seong-Kook Kim & Min-Jeong Kim, 2007. "Mentoring Network and Self-Monitoring Personality," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 18(1), pages 42-54.
    22. Peter Leung-Kwong Wong & Paul Ellis, 2002. "Social Ties and Partner Identification in Sino-Hong Kong International Joint Ventures," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 33(2), pages 267-289, June.
    23. Ozgen, Eren & Baron, Robert A., 2007. "Social sources of information in opportunity recognition: Effects of mentors, industry networks, and professional forums," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 174-192, March.
    24. Ajay Mehra & Andrea L. Dixon & Daniel J. Brass & Bruce Robertson, 2006. "The Social Network Ties of Group Leaders: Implications for Group Performance and Leader Reputation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(1), pages 64-79, February.
    25. Jeffrey G. Covin & Dennis P. Slevin, 1989. "Strategic management of small firms in hostile and benign environments," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 75-87, January.
    26. Pierre-André Julien & Eric Andriambeloson & Charles Ramangalahy, 2004. "Networks, weak signals and technological innovations among SMEs in the land-based transportation equipment sector," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 251-269, July.
    27. Herminia Ibarra & Martin Kilduff & Wenpin Tsai, 2005. "Zooming In and Out: Connecting Individuals and Collectivities at the Frontiers of Organizational Network Research," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 16(4), pages 359-371, August.
    28. Jarle Aarstad & Sven A. Haugland & Arent Greve, 2010. "Performance Spillover Effects in Entrepreneurial Networks: Assessing a Dyadic Theory of Social Capital," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 34(5), pages 1003-1020, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sascha Kraus & Janina Burtscher & Christine Vallaster & Martin Angerer, 2018. "Sustainable Entrepreneurship Orientation: A Reflection on Status-Quo Research on Factors Facilitating Responsible Managerial Practices," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-21, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barthelemy Chollet & Mickaël Géraudel & Caroline Danièle Mothe, 2013. "Generating Business Referrals for SMEs: The Contingent Value of CEOs' Social Capital," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) hal-00915173, HAL.
    2. Chauvet, Vincent & Chollet, Barthélemy & Soda, Giuseppe & Huault, Isabelle, 2011. "The contribution of network research to managerial culture and practice," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 29(5), pages 321-334.
    3. Barthélemy Chollet & Mickael Geraudel, 2010. "Réseau personnel, personnalité du dirigeant et accès aux informations sur le marché," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 13(2), pages 5-32., June.
    4. Stam, Wouter & Arzlanian, Souren & Elfring, Tom, 2014. "Social capital of entrepreneurs and small firm performance: A meta-analysis of contextual and methodological moderators," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 152-173.
    5. Jack, Sarah L., 2010. "Approaches to studying networks: Implications and outcomes," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 120-137, January.
    6. Fernández-Pérez, Virginia & García-Morales, Victor J. & Pullés, Dainelis Cabeza, 2016. "Entrepreneurial decision-making, external social networks and strategic flexibility: The role of CEOs' cognition," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 296-309.
    7. Do, Hoa & Nguyen, Bach & Shipton, Helen, 2023. "Innovation and internationalization in an emerging market context: Moderating effects of interpersonal and organizational social networks," Journal of International Management, Elsevier, vol. 29(2).
    8. Christopher Hayter, 2013. "Conceptualizing knowledge-based entrepreneurship networks: perspectives from the literature," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 41(4), pages 899-911, December.
    9. Shenggang Ren & Rui Shu & Yongchuan Bao & Xiaohong Chen, 2016. "Linking network ties to entrepreneurial opportunity discovery and exploitation: the role of affective and cognitive trust," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 465-485, June.
    10. Mayer-Haug, Katrin & Read, Stuart & Brinckmann, Jan & Dew, Nicholas & Grichnik, Dietmar, 2013. "Entrepreneurial talent and venture performance: A meta-analytic investigation of SMEs," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(6), pages 1251-1273.
    11. Chollet, Barthélemy & Géraudel, Mickaël & Khedhaouria, Anis & Mothe, Caroline, 2016. "Market knowledge as a function of CEOs' personality: A fuzzy set approach," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(7), pages 2567-2573.
    12. Sharath Sasidharan & Radhika Santhanam & Daniel J. Brass & Vallabh Sambamurthy, 2012. "The Effects of Social Network Structure on Enterprise Systems Success: A Longitudinal Multilevel Analysis," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(3-part-1), pages 658-678, September.
    13. Ciravegna, Luciano & Majano, Sara B. & Zhan, Ge, 2014. "The inception of internationalization of small and medium enterprises: The role of activeness and networks," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(6), pages 1081-1089.
    14. de Vaan, Mathijs, 2014. "Interfirm networks in periods of technological turbulence and stability," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 43(10), pages 1666-1680.
    15. Xueling Li & Jia Shen & Wenjie Ma & Weiyong Zhang, 2016. "The effect of business ties and government ties on new IT venture growth: an empirical examination in China," Information Technology and Management, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 245-261, September.
    16. Sahar Ahmadian & Somayeh Abdolmaleki, 2018. "Network typology and international opportunity recognition: moderating role of entrepreneurial orientation," Journal of Global Entrepreneurship Research, Springer;UNESCO Chair in Entrepreneurship, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, December.
    17. Gretzinger, Susanne & Royer, Susanne, 2014. "Relational resources in value adding webs: The case of a Southern Danish firm cluster," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 117-131.
    18. Sullivan, Diane M. & Marvel, Matthew R. & Wolfe, Marcus T., 2021. "With a little help from my friends? How learning activities and network ties impact performance for high tech startups in incubators," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    19. Martina Musteen & Deepak K. Datta & Marcus M. Butts, 2014. "Do International Networks and Foreign Market Knowledge Facilitate SME Internationalization? Evidence from the Czech Republic," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 38(4), pages 749-774, July.
    20. Täube, Florian A. & Karna, Amit & Sonderegger, Petra, 2019. "Economic geography and emerging market clusters: A co-evolutionary study of local and non-local networks in Bangalore," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 28(5), pages 1-1.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00915173. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.