Generating Business Referrals for SMEs: The Contingent Value of CEOs' Social Capital

Barthelemy Chollet (), Mickaël Géraudel and Caroline Mothe ()
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Barthelemy Chollet: EESC-GEM Grenoble Ecole de Management
Mickaël Géraudel: CEROM - Centre d'Etudes et de Recherche sur les Organisations et le Management - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School
Caroline Mothe: IREGE - Institut de Recherche en Gestion et en Economie - USMB [Université de Savoie] [Université de Chambéry] - Université Savoie Mont Blanc

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Abstract: We examine how small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) chief executive officers' (CEOs) social capital (as measured by strength of ties and structural holes) can help them bring business to their firms through the spread of positive referrals. Based on a sample of 408 French SME CEOs, we find a direct effect of social capital. Such effect is contingent on the CEO's personality, with social capital being most beneficial to CEOs with low levels of conscientiousness. CEOs' social ties facilitate the distortion of information, thereby leading personal contacts to give referrals to and endorse a focal CEO, even in the presence of negative signals, such as low conscientiousness.

Date: 2013
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cse, nep-sbm and nep-soc
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00915173v2
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Published in Journal of Small Business Management, 2013, 52 (1), pp.79-101. ⟨10.1111/jsbm.12034⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-00915173

DOI: 10.1111/jsbm.12034

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