Finalist for the OMT Division Best Social Networks & Organizations Paper Award
This paper investigates the role of positive and negative network ties in the activities and performance of necessity entrepreneurs in Sub-Saharan Africa. Introducing context-specific mechanisms, we elucidate why particular constellations of ties lead to specific financial and non-financial outcomes. Based on focus group discussions and ego-network data of necessity entrepreneurs in rural Tanzania, our exploratory study reveals the high prevalence of affective, behavioral, and cognitive negative ties, their context-specific meaning, and their overlap with positive ties. The findings indicate that negative ties can result in both negative and positive outcomes, whereas positive ties may lead to both positive and negative outcomes within the context of necessity entrepreneurship. By challenging existing theory on negative ties, particularly social ledger theory, our study offers novel insights for a contextualized theorizing of social networks and necessity entrepreneurship.
