VU Research Portal Weaving Social Networks Bhagavatula, S. 2009 document version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication in VU Research Portal citation for published version (APA) Bhagavatula, S. (2009). Weaving Social Networks. General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. E-mail address: [email protected] Download date: 25. Sep. 2021 Weaving Social Networks Performance of small rural firms in India as an outcome of entrepreneurs’ social and human capital Suresh Bhagavatula VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT Weaving Social Networks ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad Doctor aan de Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, op gezag van de rector magnificus prof. dr. L.M. Bouter, in het openbaar te verdedigen ten overstaan van de promotiecommissie van de faculteit der Sociale Wetenschappen op maandag 5 oktober 2009 om 10.45 uur in de aula van de universiteit, De Boelelaan 1105 ©2009 Suresh Bhagavatula. Alle rechten voorbehouden. Niets uit deze uitgave mag worden verveelvoudigd, opgeslagen in een geautomatiseerd gegevensbestand, of openbaar gemaakt, in enige vorm of op enige wijze, hetzij elektronisch, mechanisch, door fotokopieën, of op enige andere manier, zonder voorafgaande schriftelijke toestem- door ming van de rechthebbende(n). Suresh Bhagavatula ©2009 Suresh Bhagavatula. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or geboren te Visakhapatnam, India otherwise, without the prior permission in writing from the proprietor(s). Acknowledgements promotor: prof. dr. T. Elfring First and foremost I would like to thank my guides Prof. Tom Elfring, Dr. Gerhard van de copromotoren: dr. G. G. van de Bunt Bunt and Dr. Aad van Tilburg. It was due to their tireless effort that the thesis worked its way dr. A. van Tilburg to a coherent whole. Prof. Elfring, it was due to your assistance that I was able to develop a theoretical base for the research. Interactions with you have helped immensely in shaping my research capability. Gerhard, you have helped me greatly in the methodology and data analy- sis and whatever little I know in these two areas I owe it to you. Dr. Tilburg, a casual mail to you many years ago was the starting point of this research. I thank you for all the assistance you provided over the years. I would like to thank the members of my PhD committee for reviewing this work. One person without whose help this research would have been extremely difficult to ac- complish is Victor Scholten. Victor, you have helped me immensely. That the data collection and the initial analysis part went extremely quickly was because you shared your material with me. Discussions with fellow PhD students Maurits and Wouter helped me fine tune the analysis and the theoretical arguments. Thank you Kim for making my stay in the department nice. Thank you Martine for making my stay in Amsterdam nice. From the start right up to the completion, if there was one person who supported me on all fronts it was Robert Jan. It was discussions with you that helped me refine my understanding during all the stages of the research. Thank you very much for reading each chapter and for translating the executive summary. Uzramma and Annapurna, thank you for providing me with the initial contacts into handloom industry. Being introduced to Bikshapathi of Pochampalli and Mohan Rao of Chirala helped me to take forward the field work. Thank you Venkat for the assistance on the data collection. A special thanks to Koppula Venkateswara Rao of Uppada for meeting me often and spend- ing enormous amount of time to help me understand the master weaver system. Thank you Prof. Kumar for allowing me to take time out from my responsibilities at NSRCEL so that I could focus on the writing phase of the thesis. Thank you Meher, Hanu, Alka, Ranjit, Prasad, Raji and Ravi for being such good friends. I thank my immediate family Amma, Nanna, Ramesh & Jaya, Gayatri & Srinivas, and Vani for being there and providing me with the emotional support. I also thank my cousins espe- cially Sonu and Hari who initiated the BTree which helped me in many ways to keep in touch with the family during the few months each year that I spent in the Netherlands, away from home. Thank you Kiran for everything. Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................... v Table of Contents....................................................................................................... vii List of Tables............................................................................................................... xi List of Figures............................................................................................................. xi 1 The Objective of The Study................................................................................. 1 1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 2 1.1.1 The network perspective of entrepreneurship ..................................... 3 1.2 Research Framework ...................................................................................... 4 1.2.1 Social Capital ...................................................................................... 4 1.2.2 Human Capital .................................................................................... 5 1.2.3 Entrepreneurial Process ...................................................................... 6 1.2.4 Research process................................................................................. 8 1.3 Practical implications for the research context ................................................ 9 1.3.1 Entrepreneurial Studies ....................................................................... 9 1.3.2 Cluster studies .................................................................................... 10 1.4 Structure of the thesis...................................................................................... 10 2 The Study Domain................................................................................................ 13 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 13 2.2 Handloom in India ......................................................................................... 13 2.2.1 Technology Innovation ....................................................................... 14 2.2.2 Market Innovation .............................................................................. 15 2.2.3 Research in Handloom ....................................................................... 16 2.3 Current markets .............................................................................................. 16 2.4 Forms of operating organizations ................................................................... 18 2.4.1 Master weavers ................................................................................... 18 2.4.2 Cooperatives ....................................................................................... 20 2.4.3 Non Government Organizations ......................................................... 20 2.5 Government policies for the handloom sector ............................................... 21 2.5.1 Support for cooperatives ..................................................................... 21 2.5.2 Support for cluster development ......................................................... 23 2.6 Missing links in handloom research ............................................................... 24 3 Literature review and research framework....................................................... 25 3.1 Introduction .................................................................................................... 25 3.2 Literature backdrop: Entrepreneurship studies............................................... 25 3.2.1 Prior work in entrepreneurship in the non-western context................ 25 3.2.2 Entrepreneurship - Economists’ perspectives....................................... 26 5.4 Governance in master weaver operations........................................................ 65 3.2.3 Supply and Demand perspectives of entrepreneurship........................ 27 5.4.1 The production process........................................................................ 66 5.4.2 The Marketing process........................................................................ 68 3.3 Network theory of Social capital .................................................................... 29 3.3.1 Social capital.......................................................................................