Exploring objective versus subjective social ties using entrepreneurs’ gmail data

Abstract

It is intuitively appealing and common in the literature to describe social ties as one large category that represents multiple constructs which have similar relations across operationalizations. However, that approach does not capture the nuance in the literature and might obscure notable differences between subjective and objective network tie measures, and how those differences extend to relations with venture-level outcomes. Drawing upon novel objective measures of network ties derived from analyses of entrepreneurs’ Gmail data, we offer an empirical assessment of subjective social ties relative to objective social ties. In examining how those assessments relate to multiple metrics of venture performance, we look at both subjective and objective measures. We find that objective network measures predict overall subjective (but not objective) venture performance at an average of r = .31 (for network size) and r = .29 (for network engagement). We delve into the implications of our work, and discuss how future research can progress more effectively and efficiently with an eye towards the practical usefulness of our findings for entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship service organizations.