Entrepreneurs Network of Networks: studying entrepreneurs social netwerk using smart-phone data

Abstract

Entrepreneurs are embedded in multiple networks, from which they seek opportunities and resources to start-up businesses. Adopting a network perspective to study entrepreneurship may contribute to our understanding of why some entrepreneurs succeed while others fail. However, as most social network analysis data is self-reported data rather than behavioural data (Eagle and Pentland, 2009) and, much of the research is static and concerned with temporal mapping of the networks, the empirical study of entrepreneurial network dynamics has been limited by a lack of longitudinal data and process oriented data. Therefore, it neither addresses the emergence and dynamics of the network over time nor the link to entrepreneurial performance. Mobile phone networks provide new insights into the structure and dynamics of entrepreneurial networks given that mobile phones represent one of the most important ways for entrepreneurs to interact with other contacts (Candia et al., 2007). It is possible for us to analyse entrepreneurs’ behavioural and longitudinal data by collecting records saved inside mobile phones, particularly smart-phones. These devices support automatic data collection hence the study of social networks.