Meeting entrepreneurs’ expectations: the importance of social skills in strong relationships

Mette Søgaard Nielsen and Kim Klyver

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2020, vol. 32, issue 9-10, 737-756

Abstract: In this study, we are interested in whether and when individuals’ ability to interact with others influences their tendency to provide social support to nascent entrepreneurs. We argue that social skills are not only necessary for entrepreneurs to obtain resources but also important for those people (alters) providing entrepreneurs with support, and especially so in strong relationships. We argue that in strong relationships, expectations of social support exchange pressure potential support providers to provide support in order to meet those expectations. Empirically, we found an association between social skills and exchange of social support, dependent on the strength of the relationship between the resource provider and the nascent entrepreneur. The hypotheses were tested on a dataset containing 458 individuals who know a nascent entrepreneur in Denmark.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1080/08985626.2020.1757159

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