Embedded Enterprise and Social Capital

Book excerpt: This title was first published in 2002. The concept of embeddedness refers to the social construction of inter-firm relationships and the enmeshing of economic relationships within broader social structures and relationships in particular places. Previous research has suggested embedding is the best way to generate local growth and social capital and has focused on SMEs in Europe and North America, although the existing model is being more widely adopted now. This volume is the first to examine the complex processes of embedding in this wider context. Bringing together a broad range of case studies from the developed and developing world which address the nature of embeddedness from various perspectives, it not only questions the universality of the current model and the policy initiatives it has spawned but also provides a much wider understanding of embeddedness . It does so by discussing the social dimensions more fully and by throwing light on the spatial and temporal ambiguity of the concept and its inadequate treatment of power.