5 - The Scramble for Weak Ties

Summary

Introduction

The upheavals of macro-economic reform triggered a major restructuring of informal economic networks in Aba's shoe and garment clusters. Faced with the erosion of institutionalized economic arrangements such as hometown occupational networks, apprenticeship systems, and credit networks, small-scale producers have turned increasingly to the deployment of a range of personal ties to gain access to the skills, resources and markets needed to operate a business. This has led to the use of a much wider range of social relations in economic organization, as firms draw not just on kinship and hometown networks, but on ties of friendship, neighbourhood, school or church membership to organize production and distribution activities. How have these changes affected the organization and economic performance of informal small-firm networks? Does the use of a wider range of social ties lead to the development of more dynamic and globally competitive enterprise networks, or does it weaken and fragment network organization?

Reflections on the role of social networks in contemporary economic change tend to focus on variations in the use of strong and weak ties. While strong identity based ties have been celebrated as an important source of popular entrepreneurship, their ability to promote economic growth in rapidly changing conditions has been questioned.