SOSYAL AĞ KULLANIMINDA SÜREÇ YAKLAŞIMI: GİRİŞİMCİLERİN SOSYAL AĞLARI KULLANIMINDA FARKLILAŞMANIN DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ

THE PROCESS APPROACH in USING SOCIAL NETWORKS: EVALUATING the DIFFERANTIATION of ENTERPRENEURS’ USAGE of SOCIAL NETWORKS

Özet

Çalışma girişimsel başarıda etkili olduğu bilinen sosyal ağların, girişimsel süreç içinde değerlendirilmesini konu edinmektedir. Çalışmanın temel iddiası, sosyal ağların girişimsel sürecin her aşamasında farklı niteliklere sahip olduğu ve bu farklılaşmanın girişimcileri kasti/bilinçli sosyal ağ kullanımına ittiğini ortaya koymaktır. Girişimsel süreçte sosyal ağların “bütüncül bakış açısı” ile değerlendirildiği çalışmalar yerine sosyal ağlardaki farklılaşmaya odaklanması çalışmayı diğerlerinden ayırmaktadır. Çalışmada girişimsel süreç ve farklılaşan sosyal ağlar dikkate alınarak bir model geliştirme girişiminde bulunulmaktadır. Söz konusu model, girişimsel süreç içindeki temel aşamaları ve her aşamanın getirdiği sosyal ağları ve girişimcilerin bu ağlardan nasıl yararlandıklarını içermektedir. Model, nitel araştırma tasarımıyla yürütülen bir araştırma ile sınanmış ve çalışmanın iddiası desteklenmiştir. Çalışmanın vardığı temel sonuç, girişimcilerin girişimsel süreç içinde sosyal ağlarının farklılaştığı, bu farklılaşmanın kasti/bilinçli sosyal ağ kullanımından kaynaklandığı ve böylece girişimciler açısından sosyal ağ yönetiminden bahsedilebileceğidir.

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a subject matter which is frequently studied because of its potential of improving welfare in economic systems. This research interest on entrepreneurship brings about different studies which ask qualitatively different questions. Particularly at the recent times, it is observed that the studies which are relating social capital and social networks to entrepreneurship are increasing in number. The basic factor which lies at the roots of the development of this field is the aspiration of explaining the success of entrepreneurs. The factors which lie behind the entrepreneurial success can be distinguished as individual and environmental factors. Individual factors consist of the personal characteristics of the individual and her/his ability of utilizing these qualifications with an entrepreneurial focus. Environmental factors, on the other hand stem from the fact that individuals live within a community and that community offer them opportunities to be an entrepreneur or to sustaining their entrepreneurial course. But such a dual division deduces a multi-dimensional social phenomenon to a one-sided one which causes lack of understanding. This fact promotes the researchers for finding new areas of explanation. This study is also an outcome of such a pursuit. This study is constructed to claim that in entrepreneurship social capital and social networks can be concerned as an interface between individual and environmental factors. Putting it more clearly, the claim of the study is that, social capital and social networks offer a much more comprehensive framework for the explanation of entrepreneurial success because of their inclusion of both individual and environmental factors. To be able to support our claim we needed an instrument that provides us the possibility of directly tracing the relationship between social capital, social network and entrepreneurship. Concerning that social capital and social networks are dynamic in nature; this instrument must be able to make us understand especially the historical change. Thus, we thought that the entrepreneurial process can be a special instrument for understanding the relations of social capital and social networks. The understanding of the dynamic nature of social capital and social networks can only be possible by focusing on the process rather than outcomes. Hence, drawing on a process approach, this study focuses on the differentiation among the usages of social networks by the entrepreneurs. The reason of why we conduct the research through social networks, leaving the social capital outside the study, is that the concept of social network is much more convenient for understanding the differentiation among the usages during the process, comparing to the concept of social capital. Thus with its “process based differentiation” perspective, this study differs from the “holistic” studies on social networks and entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial process is composed of phases starting from the entrepreneurial intent and ending with the disappearance of “the thing” which is subject to the enterprise. The entrepreneurs use a composition of humane, financial and social capital factors, during this process. Social capital is particularly significant because of its power of affecting the level of usage of the other types of capital. But this significance differs in accordance with the phase of the entrepreneurial process as well as the usages of social capital through the social networks. When the entrepreneurial process is assessed by concerning its phases, it displays both the variation of the established connections and their forms of usage, and how the entrepreneurs consciously/deliberately manage this situation. Thus the main argument of this study is that the social networks are being used by the entrepreneurs in different ways in different phases of the entrepreneurial process and so these must be handled as deliberately managed success factors. In the current study initially we touch upon to the meanings of Individualistic and Environmentalist Schools in terms of entrepreneurship and the reason of why it is important for the literature to place social networks as an interface. Following this introduction we define social networks according to our perspective. The definition of social network which is given here makes it possible for us to develop a new point of view to the entrepreneurial process and evaluating this process by the usage of social networks. At this point we propose a new model in which social networks are positioned in the entrepreneurial process that we believe strengthens the originality of the paper. The mentioned model is composed of four basic stages. These stages differ from each other concerning both the historical evolution which the entrepreneur undergoes and the character and usage of the social networks. The stages are formulated as to display the dynamism of the process. Eventually we give place to a qualitative research which aimed at displaying the operation of the process. Regarding that the entrepreneurial process encompasses a long period, we needed to collect data covering a long period of life of the entrepreneurs. The aim of understanding how the entrepreneurs are viewing the social relationships, how they evaluate the social networks and how they establish and use these networks, guided the data collection process of this work. Only by this way we were able to assess the differentiation of the forms of usage of social networks in a view based on their entrepreneurial processes. As this study includes a limited number of entrepreneur’s life story and a limited number of interviews conducted with the entrepreneurs, it should be noted that the concern of this study is not making generalization but to understand the phenomena it is focused. We chose Convenience and Purposive Sampling methods regarding the aim of the study. The entrepreneurs for the interviews are selected by Convenience

Anahtar kelimeler: Girişimcilik, Girişimsel Süreç, Sosyal Ağlar, Sosyal Ağlar Modeli