Emprendimiento y Gestión de Organizaciones

Social Capital and the Economic Performance of Small Businesses: Role of Entrepreneurs Experience

Abstract

Kraima Mohamed Taher

This work analyses the personal, associative, institutional, and professional relationship networks in which the entrepreneur is involved and the resources embedded therein, and it proposes that an entrepreneur's social capital resources are determinants of his/her business' economic performance. The effect of social capital resources is moderated by the entrepreneur's experience. A questionnaire survey and a quota sample of 410 small- and medium-sized firms in Tunisia were used to test the proposed hypotheses. Results show that economic performance is influenced more by institutional and professional network resources than by the other network resources. However, the entrepreneur's experience in the sector reinforces the impact of professional and institutional resources.