Paper info

The Development and Use of Social Resources During the Process of New Venture Development

Andrew Keating and Damien McLoughlin

The paper was published at the 27th IMP-conference in Glasgow, Scotland in 2011.

This paper sets out to explore longitudinally the use of social resources during the development process of a new venture. This paper empirically investigate the functions that social resources might serve, which include information and advice, bridging, and legitimacy, and their impact across a number of stages of development of a new venture. The focus is upon a single case study of a venture in the Irish Sciences and accounts for over six years of its development from opportunity recognition to the creation of a product line and accounts for the impact that the use of social connections had on their resource base. What emerges is that the social resources of the venture were used to in each of the periods of development of the firm across the functions that social resources can serve and that their use matched the aims of the venture to access or develop perceived salient resources according to their stage of development and had a significant bearing on the survival and development of this venture.
Key Words: Social Resources, New venture development, functions of relationships