2011/07/20 by Jean-Philippe Berrou, Jean‐Philippe Berrou, François Combarnous · 3 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Microfinance and Financial Inclusion #Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy #Taxation and Compliance Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/00346764.2011.577347
crossref issued 2011/07/20 · crossref published 2011/07/20 · crossref published-online 2011/07/20 · openalex publication_date 2011/07/20 · crossref created 2011/07/20 · crossref published-print 2012/03/01 · crossref deposited 2024/04/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29 · crossref indexed 2026/08/01
This paper investigates Granovetter's “strength of weak ties” hypothesis in an informal African urban economy. It outlines an approach articulated around the reticular embeddedness conceptual framework associated with the notion of “ego-centred network.” The content of ties in an entrepreneur's network is described by three salient dimensions: strength, social role and exchanged resources. We use an original dataset collected in the informal economy of Bobo-Dioulasso (Burkina Faso) to evaluate how the content and strength of ties influence entrepreneurs' economic outcomes. The instrument of multiple name generators provides a vast amount of information that can be used to compute quantitative measures of the composition of networks. We show that both strength of ties and proportion of business ties have a significant positive impact on economic outcomes. It reveals the importance for small urban informal entrepreneurs to draw on both embedded social relations and more autonomous ones.