Social structure and business creation

Abstract

To Economic Sociology, social structures, in the form of interpersonal ties, influence individual initiatives and economic results derived therefrom. According to Granovetter, there are three basic types of ties: strongly coupled; decoupled and weakly coupled. This work is situated in the context of these reflections, and we try to identify, through a sample survey of 100 entrepreneurs in the municipality of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, the original social structures of these individuals, in line with Granovetter's generic typology; to assess the presence of associations between these structures and the trajectory of the projects, especially the motivation to undertake and market access. We finish developing a typology of structures / specific social networks for the entrepreneur's analysis, consisting of three categories: family, professional and diffuse.