social capital; personality traits; business referrals
Résumé :
[en] 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.
Disciplines :
Stratégie & innovation
Auteur, co-auteur :
Chollet, Barthelemy; Grenoble Ecole de Management
GERAUDEL, Mickaël ; University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance (FDEF) > Center for Research in Economic Analysis (CREA)
Mothe, Caroline
Co-auteurs externes :
yes
Langue du document :
Anglais
Titre :
Generating business referrals for SMEs: The contingent value of CEOs’ social capital
