CROSS-NATIONAL SIMILARITIES IN THE PERSONAL NETWORKS OF SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS - A COMPARISON OF 2 REGIONS IN NORTH-AMERICA

Following Granovetter (1985), we propose a social embeddedness model o f business relations to explain how the personal networks of business owners are constructed. Using questionnaire survey data on 261 busines s owners in Atlantic Canada and the Research Triangle area in North Ca rolina, we examine two issues: what are the characteristics of busines s owners' personal networks; and to what extent does social networking behavior vary across regions with different business environments? Ou r empirical results are consistent with the embeddedness model. in bot h regions, friends and family are at the centre of owners' networks, t he networks are of long duration, and the owners make moderate use of brokers in assembling network members.