Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development

Near, far, and online: small business owners’ advice-seeking from peers
Kristine Kuhn Tera Galloway Maureen Collins-Williams
Article information:
To cite this document:
Kristine Kuhn Tera Galloway Maureen Collins-Williams , (2016),"Near, far, and online: small business
owners’ advice-seeking from peers", Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 23
Iss 1 pp. 189 - 206
Permanent link to this document:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-03-2015-0037
Downloaded on: 09 February 2016, At: 14:01 (PT)
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

References: this document contains references to 65 other documents.

To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 28 times since 2016*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
Barbro Widerstedt, Jonas Månsson, (2015),"Can business counselling help SMEs grow? Evidence
from the Swedish business development grant programme", Journal of Small Business and
Enterprise Development, Vol. 22 Iss 4 pp. 652-665 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JSBED-06-2012-0073
Najla Shafighi, Abu Hassan Shaari, Behrooz Gharleghi, Tamat Sarmidi, Khairuddin Omar,
(2016),"Financial integration via panel cointegration approaches in ASEAN+5", Journal of Economic
Studies, Vol. 43 Iss 1 pp. 2-15 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/JES-08-2014-0141
Carlos A. Felippa, (1990),"Programming the isoparametric six-node triangle", Engineering
Computations, Vol. 7 Iss 2 pp. 173-177 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/eb023804

Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-
srm:198285 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald
for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission
guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company
manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as
well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and
services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the
Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for
digital archive preservation.
 *Related content and download information correct at time of
download.
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)
 The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1462-6004.htm

Near, far, and online: Small

business
small business owners’ owners’
advice-seeking
advice-seeking from peers
Kristine Kuhn 189
Department of Management, Information Systems, and Entrepreneurship, Received 30 March 2015
Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA Revised 16 July 2015
Accepted 27 July 2015
Tera Galloway
Department of Management and Quantitative Methods,
Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, USA, and
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

Maureen Collins-Williams
Department of Entrepreneurship, University of Northern Iowa,
Cedar Falls, Iowa, USA

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine small business owners’ informal advice-seeking
from peers, with a focus on the opportunities afforded by the internet for owners to acquire assistance
from other owner-managers outside their local community.
Design/methodology/approach – Over 600 owner-managers in a rural US state were surveyed
about their advice-seeking during the previous year from peers in the same community, from non-local
peers they had met in person, and from peers known only online. Mixed effects logistic regression
analysis was used to test both main effects of business and owner characteristics on advice-seeking
and interactions with type/location of peer advisors.
Findings – Most owners had received advice from peers, and one-third had received advice online
from a peer whom they had never met in person. Business performance was not associated with overall
use of peer advice, but did interact significantly with source; the use of online-only advisors was
associated with business growth, suggesting the possible benefit of weak ties. Over two-thirds of
respondents reported having used social media and/or online forums to access advice or support from
other owners (both those met in person and those not), with women and younger owners more likely to
rely on such tools.
Originality/value – This study shows that entrepreneurial research needs to consider peer advisors
beyond local networks as potential resources for small business owners. While previous research has
examined entrepreneurs’ use of social media for marketing, this study shows its utility for accessing advice.
Keywords Online communication, Advice, Small business, Networking
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
The benefits of receiving advice from professional business advisors and public
support services have been demonstrated in a number of entrepreneurship studies
(e.g. Chrisman et al., 2005; Cumming and Fischer, 2012; Sullivan and Marvel, 2011;
Wren and Storey, 2002). Other business owners are less commonly studied as sources
of advice, but entrepreneurs may especially value informal peer advisors, and even
prefer them despite incentives to use professional sources (Fischer and Reuber, 2003).
Journal of Small Business and
Peers can personally relate to the challenges of running a business and, in some cases, Enterprise Development
have specialized relevant expertise (Kuhn and Galloway, 2015). They may be a Vol. 23 No. 1, 2016
pp. 189-206
particularly important resource for small and micro-sized businesses, for whom paid © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1462-6004
professional advisors may be less feasible or affordable. DOI 10.1108/JSBED-03-2015-0037
 JSBED To date, however, there has been relatively little systematic research focussed on
23,1 small business owners’ advice-seeking from peers. Previous research on networking
among small business owners, particularly in rural areas, has often considered only
local networks (e.g. Ring et al., 2010). While some possible benefits of owner networks,
such as tourism promotion, are geographically constrained, advice is not. In this study
we consider that the internet affords small business owners increased opportunities to
190 seek out advice from peers they have never met in person, as well as to foster
relationships with non-local peers they have met. Because weak ties may be especially
likely to act as bridges to novel knowledge (Burt, 1992; Granovetter, 1973), advice from
non-local advisors may sometimes offer entrepreneurs greater benefits than that
received from (presumably) stronger local ties (Falemo, 1989; Stam et al., 2014).
Although small business owners’ use of the internet and social media for marketing
purposes has attracted research attention (e.g. Harris et al., 2012), the implications of
this communication revolution for peer advice-seeking have not.
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

This study represents a first step at addressing this gap. We examine what factors
shape both whether and where small business owners seek advice from other owner-
managers, as well as their more general use of online forums and social media to access
peer assistance and support. Given the sparseness of previous research in this area,
this study is primarily exploratory, with related theory and research used to identify
factors of interest.
A main contribution of this research is that it is the first to distinguish among peer
advisors located in the immediate vicinity, those located further away whom the owner
has met in person, and those with whom the owner has only communicated online.
Thus peer advice-seeking is conceptualized as inclusive of both strong and weak ties.
While previous research has examined the use of “electronic weak ties” for advice in
corporate settings (Constant et al., 1996), to our knowledge this is the first study to
document the surprising prevalence of this source of advice for small business owners.
Results indicate that a more nuanced assessment of differences among informal
advisors will be beneficial to continued theory development in entrepreneurial
networking, and that researchers and policy makers should consider sources of peer
advice for small business owners beyond local networks.

Peers as informal advisors and trust

The presumed utility of peer advisors is implicit in much entrepreneurial practice.
Some private-sector organizations facilitate peer coaching, usually for a fee, by giving
members the chance to present their business problems to a small group of local
noncompeting owners in structured sessions (see Mount, 2012). Leading educational
initiatives for small business owners also emphasize peer-learning and the development
of peer networks (Babson College, 2014). Co-work facilities and business incubators are
valued in part because they are thought to foster informal peer networking, in addition
to providing professional client advisors and other resources (Bøllingtoft and Ulhøi,
2005; McAdam and Marlow, 2011; Rice, 2002).
Yet informal advice-seeking from peers is rarely an explicit focus in the
entrepreneurship research literature. When the owners of small and medium
enterprises are surveyed on their use of external advice, they are typically provided
with lists of potential sources, such as accountants, banks, consultants, lawyers, public
agencies, and family members, and asked to rate their advice-seeking from people in
each category (e.g. Gronum et al., 2012; Robinson and Stubberud, 2009; Robson et al.,
2008; Watson, 2007). Depending on survey design, advice received from other business
 owners may be missed or conflated with other categories. For example, a large-scale Small
study of external advice-seeking may define the informal source category as “business business
friends and relatives” (Bennett and Robson, 1999), which would tend to limit responses
to stronger ties and include non-owners. Two studies of small business owners’
owners’
networking that have mentioned peers as a distinct category have reported somewhat advice-seeking
conflicting results, possibly due to the locations of their samples. Other business
owner-managers were the second most commonly cited source of useful information in 191
Chell and Baines’ (2000) survey of service microbusinesses in two British cities,
which they described as a “perhaps surprising” result that might not generalize to
non-urban locations. In contrast, Birley et al. (1991) reported that the scarcity of other
owner-managers in the personal contact networks of small business owners in
Northern Ireland was surprising.
Bennett and Robson (1999) observed that one difference between formal sources of
external advice (paid advisors and public sector agencies) and informal sources (friends
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

and relatives) is that the latter category would be limited by the extent to which the
owner’s existing personal network includes those with relevant experience. Unlike
professional business advisors whose use can be based on institutional trust or market
signals, advice seeking from friends and relatives is thought to depend on personal
trust derived from long-term relational exchange (Bennett and Robson, 2004).
Here we adopt a broader view by examining informal advisors who represent weak as
well as strong ties, and who may or may not have long-term relationships with the owner.
We also limit the focus to informal peer advisors, defined as other owner-managers of
small businesses. We consider that business owners may actively seek out, or take
actions that increase their likelihood of meeting, such peers to serve as informal advisors,
and that they are not necessarily restricted to an existing personal network.
While weak ties may be less trusted than strong ties, they can offer novelty and
efficiency (Granovetter, 1973). Kautonen et al. (2010) found that strong ties may impair
small business owners’ ability to accurately assess their advisors (and that the effects
of tie strength on trustworthiness perceptions differ for informal and formal advisors).
Research on corporate employees in knowledge-intensive industries has shown they
can obtain valuable technical advice from “electronic weak ties” who are functionally
strangers (Constant et al., 1996) and that the advantages of weak tie advisors emerge
when benevolence- and competence-based trust are controlled for (Levin and Cross,
2004), although more knowledge transfer derives from strong tie advisors.
Small business owners do not have the benefit of membership in a large corporate
network, but they may attend trade shows or conventions that provide opportunities to
meet non-local peers with industry-specific expertise, and they may also use the
internet to seek advice from peers they never meet (i.e. electronic weak ties). In addition
to providing informational resources and access to professional mentors (e.g. Fielden
and Hunt, 2011), many of the growing number of public and private online-based
entrepreneur support services provide opportunities to connect with peers who face
similar challenges. For example, in the USA some public universities’ online portals for
small business owners allow them to post questions to solicit ideas and solutions from
other members across industries, and some facilitate statewide industry-specific
groups of owners. Small business owners may also take advantage of popular social
media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to network with other owners. Among
entrepreneurs affiliated with a Swiss technology start-up initiative, network centrality
assessed via these social media sites was associated with success (Gloor et al., 2013),
suggesting these online tools allowed them to build on pre-existing social capital.
 JSBED Utilizing non-local and online peer advisors could potentially give small business
23,1 owners broader access to specific relevant expertise, and to peers who are less likely to
be direct competitors. Research in other business contexts, however, has shown
propinquity to be a strong predictor of communication. Employees whose work
stations are closer together are more likely to communicate by any modality (Allen,
2000), geographical proximity affects information flows among firms (Whittington
192 et al., 2009), and closer proximity is associated with venture capitalists offering advice
and support to firms via board membership, which benefits their performance (Chen
et al., 2010; Lerner, 1995).
Moreover, experimental psychology research on team behavior and negotiations has
found that regular face-to-face communication, which readily conveys nonverbal
information and immediate feedback, facilitates trust building and credibility, and that
trust is especially difficult to build when communication is solely computer-mediated
(e.g. Naquin and Paulson, 2003; Rockmann and Northcraft, 2008; Wilson et al., 2006).
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

An introductory in person meeting between strangers fosters trust building, even if

subsequent communication is by e-mail (Hill et al., 2009), and so it is important to
distinguish between advisors met in person at least once and those known only online.
On the other hand, some research has found that while relational trust may not be
possible in fleeting online interactions such as posts on large question-and-answer
forums, the ability to infer trustworthiness still permits significant cooperation and
knowledge sharing in online communities (Cheshire, 2011; Rosen et al., 2011).
Although there is an abundance of research on computer-mediated communication
in other academic disciplines, we know little about this factor in entrepreneurial
networking. McGrath et al. (2003) studied 20 software executives’ advice networks, and
found that these technologically sophisticated entrepreneurs still preferred to
communicate face-to-face or by telephone rather than e-mail. Fischer and Reuber
(2011) noted that most entrepreneurship research on social media has focussed on its
use as a marketing tool; they interviewed 12 entrepreneurs about their use of Twitter,
and found some viewed it as a tool for expanding their communities and connections
(although not necessarily for advice-seeking).
When interviewing small business owners about their reluctance to use publicly
provided online peer networking tools, the third author has found that many cite fears
of revealing too much information to unknown readers. Conversely, Kuhn and
Galloway (2015) found extensive advice sharing, much of which took place online,
among owners of arts and crafts microbusinesses. These owners sold their work on
internet marketplaces that actively facilitated peer networks, however, and so this
represents a unique context. Moreover, their quantitative survey data did not
distinguish between peer advisors an owner had also met in person and those known
only online (Kuhn and Galloway, 2015).

Motives, means, and opportunity for peer advice-seeking

Entrepreneurs’ external advice-seeking is primarily theorized to be driven by
knowledge gaps (Alvarez and Busenitz, 2001; Barney, 1991; West and Noel, 2009). Even
when entrepreneurs recognize a deficit in their knowledge, however, some may
perceive social or psychological costs to seeking help, and thus some individuals may
be generally less inclined to proactively seek advice (Studdard and Munchus, 2009).
This may be especially relevant for informal advisors. Knowledge gaps and
help-seeking tendencies are likely to influence advice-seeking from peers as well as
from other external sources, but for informal peer advisors we propose that it is
 particularly important to consider means and opportunity. While small business Small
owners should generally be able to identify formal, professional advisors such as business
accountants or public sector support agencies, the ease with which they can find
suitable peer advisors may vary substantially. Therefore, owner and business
owners’
characteristics associated with networking and advice seeking from professional advice-seeking
business advisors (e.g. Bennett and Robson, 1999; Greve and Salaff, 2003; Johnson et al.,
2007; Robson et al., 2008; Watson, 2012), may have different associations with informal 193
advice-seeking from peers.
For example, newer businesses are the most likely to access beneficial advice from
government and professional sources (Hoang and Antoncic, 2003; West and Noel,
2009), as new and nascent entrepreneurs need the most advice (e.g. Davidsson and
Honig, 2003). But advice-seeking from peers may be more constrained by opportunity,
and therefore any relationship with firm age would be less straightforward. While
owners of newly established small businesses may perceive peer advice as potentially
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

quite valuable, they may also have greater difficulty finding suitable peer advisors in
comparison to established owners who have had more time to build peer relationships
(Kuhn and Galloway, 2015).
In comparison to founders, owners who acquire an existing business may more
easily access peer advice, or perhaps rely on different sources of peers. Greve and Salaff
(2003) hypothesized that entrepreneurs who take over an existing business would have
smaller discussion networks than founders due to a transfer of social capital from the
previous owner, although their results did not confirm this. Owners who take over an
existing business, however, may often rely on the previous owner as a peer advisor,
particularly if that person is a family member, and the previous owner may also
facilitate personal contacts with other owner-managers.
It is also not obvious what relationship, if any, should exist between business size and
peer advice-seeking. Although firm size has been found to be positively associated with
greater likelihood of seeking advice from formal sources (Bennett et al., 2000; Cooper et al.,
1989), Bennett and Robson (1999) found that businesses with fewer than five employees
were the most likely to report having received informal advice from business friends or
relatives, even in comparison to those businesses only somewhat larger. They suggested
that for micro-businesses friends and relatives “may be the best way of getting value at a
low price and with a high level of trust, with also a high level of confidentiality” (Bennett
and Robson, 1999, p. 161). On the other hand, small business owners with (relatively)
more employees may be more likely to belong to a Chamber of Commerce, business club,
or trade association than microbusiness owners, and thus have greater opportunity to
access potential peer advisors, even if they are not necessarily strong ties.
Assistance received from public agencies is another factor for which it would be
possible to hypothesize either a negative or positive relationship with peer advice-
seeking. Robson et al. (2008) suggested that entrepreneurs who are reluctant to seek
advice from government sources turn to alternative sources of advice; this would imply
that small business owners who seek advice from peers might be less likely to use
government support services. But if advice from peers acts as a complement to more
formal advisory relationships, then peer advice-seeking would be positively associated
with public agency assistance because both behaviors reflect the owner’s general
willingness to seek help.
The two most commonly studied individual difference variables in entrepreneur
networking are gender and education. Some studies have reported gender differences
in entrepreneurs’ networking, particularly with respect to informal sources (Greve and
 JSBED Salaff, 2003), whereas others have found negligible differences between men and
23,1 women when factors such as firm size and education are controlled (Robson et al., 2008;
Watson, 2012). Studdard and Munchus (2009) proposed that women entrepreneurs
would be more likely to proactively seek help compared to men, because they would be
less likely to perceive social costs to doing so. Bosworth (2009) found English rural
microbusiness owners with higher levels of education were more likely to engage with
194 networking groups and with professional providers of business advice.
The age of the business owner is less commonly studied, but this individual
difference may be especially relevant for online advice-seeking and peer assistance.
Among American adults who use the internet, age continues to be strongly and
negatively associated with social media use (Brenner and Smith, 2013). Because
younger entrepreneurs are likely to be more comfortable and familiar with online
networking tools, they should be more likely to seek peer advisors online, and to utilize
social media and online forums for general peer assistance.
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

We are particularly interested in whether the population density of the business

location influences whether and where an owner seeks advice from peers. Controlling
for firm size and structural variables, Bennett et al. (2001) found that while location did
not affect the use of private-sector advisors such as accountants, geographically
isolated business owners were significantly less likely to seek advice from business
friends and relatives compared to owners located in more populous areas. Bennett et al.
(2001) analyzed survey data collected in 1997, however, when the internet was less
ubiquitous. Many online networking services are open to all interested small business
owners, equalizing opportunity regardless of location. If small business owners in
extremely rural areas have difficulty finding a suitable peer advisor in their local
community, they may seek out non-local peers or use online tools to seek advice.
As discussed earlier, one of the promoted benefits of co-work facilities and business
incubators is their facilitation of peer-to-peer networking. We are not aware, however,
of any prior research explicitly comparing peer advice-seeking between small business
owners who use such services and those who do not. Small business entrepreneurs who
do use such services should have increased opportunity to meet peers who might serve
as potential advisors, and services may also bring in successful entrepreneurs from
outside the community for educational purposes. Given that these programs facilitate
face-to-face meetings, any associated increase in peer advice-seeking would likely be
restricted to peers who have been met in person.
We also explore the relationship between business performance and peer advice-
seeking, although as a cross-sectional study we do not attempt to test a causal effect.
Previous research has found that both downsizing and expansion prompt external
advice-seeking (McDonald and Westphal, 2003; Robson and Bennett, 2000), but has not
assessed peer advice-seeking specifically. Small business owners with a growth
orientation have been found to engage in more networking activity (Chell and Baines,
2000) and to seek more external business advice ( Johnson et al., 2007).

Methodology
Data collection and respondents
Data were collected via an annual survey conducted of entrepreneurs in a Midwestern
US state. This survey collects detailed information about their personal characteristics,
expectations, opinions, and utilization and experiences with public support services for
businesses. Questions were added to the 2013 survey that specifically addressed
owners’ peer advice-seeking.
 Letters inviting participation in the web-based survey were e-mailed to 16,094 Small
people identified by a local university’s entrepreneurship center and by a private business
marketing and mail list provider. In total, 850 people began the survey, and 702
completed it. For this study, analysis was restricted to respondents who owned a
owners’
currently operating business with 50 or fewer employees. In total, 82 respondents who advice-seeking
had closed or sold their business, or who were in the planning stage, were removed, and
so were 11 respondents whose business had over 50 employees. 195
The final sample of 609 respondents owned businesses with an average of five
employees. Respondents’ demographics and business characteristics are provided in
Table AI. Most businesses were in the service or retail sectors. In total, 77 percent had
been founded by the respondent owner, and slightly more than half had owned the
business for at least five years.
This state has over 90 counties (local governance units between 1,000 and 2,000 square
kilometers) and respondents entered the county in which their business was located. The
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

US Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service’s 2013 Rural-Urban Continuum

code for each county was used as the measure of its urbanization. This measure classifies
metropolitan counties by the population size of their metro area, and nonmetropolitan
counties by their degree of urbanization and adjacency to a metro area. For this state,
no county has a population of more than one million, and thus the effective scale ranged
from 2 (metro area of 250,000 to 1 million) to 9 (completely rural or less than 2,500 urban
population, not adjacent to a metro area). The average score on this urban-rural measure
was 4.53 (SD ¼ 2.2), with higher numbers indicating a greater degree of ruralness.
Recent business performance was assessed by asking respondents to indicate
whether their business had expanded (“could include new investments, new products,
new customer segments or new employees”), stayed the same, or downsized (“may
include dropping products, losing customers or losing employees”) during the previous
year. In total, 37 percent reported growth, 49 percent stability, and 14 percent that their
business had shrunk.
In total, 26 respondents (4 percent) had used an incubator program, and 42
(7 percent) had used a co-work facility. Ten respondents reported using both, and given
the relatively small numbers, respondents were classified dichotomously as having
used either type of program or not.
The survey requested the extent to which owners had accessed each of a variety of
public sector initiatives for support, for example a Small Business Development Center
or the Small Business Administration. These were summed for a single measure of the
number of times assistance was sought from a public agency, with four or more as
the highest category. This measure had a mean of 0.94 (SD ¼ 1.44).

Dependent measures
The primary dependent variables were how many times the business owner had sought
advice in the previous year (none, one time, two times, three times, four or more times)
from each of three sources: other small business owners in their town/region they had
met in person, other small business owners from outside their town/region they had met
in person, and other small business owners they had only ever had contact with online.
Because of the distinction noted earlier between using online tools to find suitable
peer advisors and the more general use of social media for networking purposes, the
survey also included a broad assessment of online peer assistance. Respondents were
asked to rate the extent they had received advice and/or support from other
owner-managers in online forums or social media networking sites. This question was
 JSBED not time-specific, included “support” as well as advice, and did not exclude peers who
23,1 had also been met in person. Responses for this question ranged from 0 ¼ none to 4 ¼ a
very great deal.

Results
Table I shows respondents’ reported frequency of advice-seeking from the three peer
196 type categories (i.e. local, non-local, and online-only). Advice seeking from local peers
was most common, but it is noteworthy that over half had sought advice from non-local
peers they had met in person and over one-third of respondents had sought advice from
other owners they had only had contact with online. Overall, 75 percent of respondents
had sought advice from another small business owner/s during the previous year.

Logistic regression analysis of advice-seeking

These responses were analyzed using a mixed effects logistic regression model
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

(Pendergast et al., 1996). Given the distribution of the responses and their sparseness in
the higher categories, we analyzed these responses as dichotomous (no advice vs some
advice) for each of the three peer advisor category types. Collapsing adjacent categories
in this way, an ordinal logistic model reduces to a binary logistic model with only two
response categories but also fewer threshold parameters, which could not be reliably
estimated because of the sparseness (McCullagh, 1980).
Table II shows the results of a mixed effects logistic regression model for the effects
of business and owner characteristics, as well as the type of peer advisor, on a
respondent’s likelihood of having sought advice. A random respondent-specific effect
was specified to account for dependencies among the three responses – one for each
type of peer advisor – from each respondent. This analysis examined both main effects
on peer advice seeking in general, as well as whether business and owner
characteristics interacted with the type of peer advisor. The estimates for each
variable’s effects on the likelihood of utilizing each peer advisor type are also provided,
with standard errors, and are tested for their significance from zero.
The main effect of type of peer advisor was significant, as overall respondents were
most likely to have sought advice from a local peer and least likely to have sought
advice from a peer they had never met in person (as shown in Table I).
Peer advice-seeking did not differ significantly across industry sectors. Notably, the
age of the business had no effect on peer advice-seeking, as newer owners were not any
more or less likely to have received peer advice (although they were more likely to have
sought assistance from public agencies). Compared to those who had founded a new
business, respondents who had acquired an existing business were much less likely to
have sought advice from an online-only peer and more likely to have received advice
from a local peer; for this factor, the interaction with peer type is significant. Owners of
larger businesses were more likely to have received advice from peers met in person,

None Some Once Twice Three ⩾ Four times

(%) (%) (%) (%) (%) (%)
Table I.
Advice-seeking from From local peers, met in person 35.6 64.4 11.3 21.7 6.9 24.5
other small business From non-local peers, met in person 44.5 55.5 12.2 17.1 9.9 16.4
owners during From peers known only online 66.3 33.7 8.5 11.3 3.8 10.1
previous year Note: n ¼ 609
 Peer type
Small
Main Interaction Non-local Online, Not met business
effect with peer type Local peer/s peer/s in person owners’
F F β SE β SE β SE
advice-seeking
Peer type 2.80* 0.89 (0.83) −1.08 (0.82) −1.95 (0.87)
Industry sector 0.07 1.12
Retail/wholesale −0.18 (0.32) 0.05 (0.68) −0.23 (0.33)
197
Manufacturing 0.21 (0.60) −0.46 (0.58) 0.09 (0.59)
Agriculture −0.42 (0.67) 0.43 (0.66) 0.05 (0.68)
Technology −0.64 (0.52) −0.21 (0.53) 0.68 (0.52)
Service 0 0 0
Business age 0.11 1.62 −0.10 (0.12) 0.15 (0.12) 0.04 (0.12)
Acquired existing
business 1.07 3.65* 0.14 (0.37) 0.03 (0.36) −1.03 (0.40)**
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

Business sizea 6.07* 3.11* 0.33 (0.16)* 0.50 (0.16)** 0.05 (0.16)
Public agency
usage 18.04*** 2.18 0.38 (0.11)*** 0.19 (0.10) 0.40 (0.10)***
Gender (female) 4.31* 0.49 0.38 (0.29) 0.64 (0.30)* 0.33 (0.30)
Education 1.62 0.60 0.13 (0.09) 0.12 (0.09) 0.02 (0.10)
Owner’s age 2.37 0.45 −0.14 (0.13) −0.22 (0.13) −0.08 (0.13)
Ruralness 0.03 1.35 −0.01 (0.07) 0.08 (0.06) −0.04 (0.07)
Co-work/incubator
usage 10.97*** 1.93 0.93 (0.54) 1.95 (0.54)*** 0.88 (0.47)
Performance 1.02 2.43*
Grew −0.50 (0.46) −0.17 (0.44) 1.07 (0.47)* Table II.
Stayed the same −0.50 (0.43) −0.54 (0.41) 0.46 (0.44) Logistic regression
Shrank 0 0 0 analysis of peer
Notes: n ¼ 609. aLogged number of employees. *p o 0.05; **p o0.01; ***p o0.001 advice-seeking

although business size was not significantly associated with having received advice
from an online-only peer. Usage of public agencies for assistance was positively
associated with seeking advice from peers, particularly so for online-only peers.
Women, on average, were more likely to report having received peer advice, most
notably from non-local peers met in person. An owner’s formal education was not
associated with peer advice-seeking. Contrary to expectations, older owners were
not significantly less likely to have sought advice from an online-only peer, nor was the
effect of age on overall peer advice-seeking significant. The ruralness of the business’
location also had no significant effect on peer advice-seeking. Owners who had used a
co-work and/or incubator facility were more likely to have sought advice from peers,
and significantly so for non-local peers met in person.
Business performance interacted significantly with type of peer advisor. Owners
who had received advice from an online-only peer were more likely to have reported
growth, whereas the opposite trend held for advice from peers met in person.

Use of social media for peer assistance

The social media peer assistance measure assessed the extent to which respondents
had broadly relied on online networking tools and forums for peer advice and support,
regardless of time period and regardless of whether contacts had ever been met in
person. Overall, a strong majority (71 percent) reported they had received at least a little
peer assistance via social media or online forums (average ¼ 1.63, SD ¼ 1.38).
 JSBED As shown in Table III, Model 1, these responses (ranging from 0 to 4) were first
23,1 analyzed via an analysis of variance simple main effects model using business and
owner characteristics as predictors. There were no significant effects of business size,
age, performance, or geographic isolation, while usage of public support services was
positively associated. Notably, for this measure there was a significant effect of
entrepreneur age, as older owners reported less use of social media and online forums
198 for peer assistance compared to younger owners. Women also tended to report greater
use of online social media for peer assistance than did men.
Model 2 in Table III adds whether or not the owner had recently sought advice from
each of the three types of peer advisor categories. Advice-seeking from online-only
peers in the previous year was strongly associated with this broader measure of
internet-based peer assistance. Note, however, that most owners who had not received
advice from an online-only peer still reported relying on social media and online forums
for peer assistance.
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

Discussion
While there is ample research on entrepreneurs’ external advice seeking from paid
professional and public sector business advisors, we know less about their advice
seeking from informal, unpaid advisors. Much of the extant research on informal
advisors has considered only friends and relatives, i.e. relatively strong ties, or has

Model 1 Model 2
β SE β SE

Industry sector
Retail/wholesale 0.03 (0.12) 0.05 (0.12)
Manufacturing 0.06 (0.23) 0.06 (0.21)
Agriculture −0.23 (0.26) −0.26 (0.24)
Technology 0.10 (0.21) 0.03 (0.20)
Service 0 0
Business age 0.01 (0.05) 0.00 (0.04)
Acquired existing business −0.23 (0.14) −0.14 (0.13)
Business sizea 0.03 (0.06) 0.01 (0.06)
Public agency usage 0.19 (0.04)*** 0.13 (0.04)***
Gender (female) 0.27 (0.11)** 0.21 (0.10)*
Education 0.06 (0.04) 0.05 (0.03)
Owner’s age −0.19 (0.04)*** −0.17 (0.05)***
Ruralness −0.01 (0.03) −0.01 (0.02)
Co-work/incubator usage 0.21 (0.19) 0.04 (0.18)
Performance
Grew 0.18 (0.17) 0.08 (0.17)
Stayed the same −0.06 (0.16) −0.07 (0.15)
Shrank 0 0
Intercept 1.67 (0.58)** 2.38 (0.56)***
Local peer advice-seeking 0.14 (0.12)
Non-local peer advice seeking 0.20 (0.12)
Table III. Online-only peer advice seeking 0.81 (0.12)***
Analysis of variance
of social media/ F 5.92*** 9.53***
online forums usage R2 0.13 0.23
for peer assistance Notes: n ¼ 609. *p o0.05; **p o0.01; ***p o0.001
 examined only local business owner networks. This study of small business owners Small
across several industry sectors is, to our knowledge, the first to examine their advice business
seeking from other small business owners inclusive of both strong and weak ties, and
to contrast peers found in the local vicinity to those found further afield and online.
owners’
Relationships between firm performance and entrepreneurs’ social capital as advice-seeking
embedded in their personal networks have been demonstrated in a number of studies
(see Gedajlovic et al., 2013; Stam et al., 2014, for reviews), and external advisors provide 199
owner-managers with intangible benefits as well (Ramsden and Bennett, 2005).
Continued theoretical development and the effective design of entrepreneurial support
services necessitate more nuanced assessments of advice-seeking, however, in
particular those that take into account communication modes and business owners’
socio-spatial contexts.
Although earlier research found businesses in more rural areas were less likely to
receive advice from informal sources (Bennett et al., 2001), this was not the case for this
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

sample and the use of informal peer advisors. We found that business owners in
geographically isolated areas and those in urban areas were equally likely to have
received advice from a peer. Somewhat surprisingly, there was no significant
interaction between ruralness and the location/type of peer advisors. It is possible that
owners in urban areas are more likely to have multiple peer advisors, or to perceive
them as offering higher quality advice, compared to those in more isolated areas; this
would be an important question for future research.
This study is among the first to explore weak ties in peer advice seeking in the
online context, and highlights the impact of the internet in entrepreneurial networking.
In addition to finding advice for specific problems or technical issues, small business
owners also use the internet to access support and encouragement from, and build
relationships with, their peers. We found it particularly interesting that while younger
owners were not significantly more likely than older ones to have received advice from
an online-only peer, they did report greater use of social media for accessing advice and
support from peers. This result suggests that the use of internet tools for peer
networking will become increasingly prevalent, and in the current sample a majority of
respondents were already using social media and/or online forums to receive some form
of assistance from other owners. Moreover, location in a more or less populous county
had no significant effect on their degree of reliance on such tools. The distinction
between using the internet to locate peer advisors and using it to network with peers
already identified may be critical, and planned research will further explore this by
asking small business owners both how they originally met a valued advisor and how
they typically communicate with him or her. As technological advances continue to
improve the communication richness of online interactions (e.g. Skype vs e-mail), it will
also be important to study differences among online communication methods.
Although a number of studies have examined whether men and women
entrepreneurs tend to use different categories of people for external assistance
(e.g. Watson, 2012), to our knowledge this is the first study to find gender differences in
how they communicate with advisors. Women reported greater use of social media and
online forums to access peer assistance, which is intriguing given that there are
negligible gender differences in the use of social media in the general population
(Brenner and Smith, 2013). The finding that men were overall less likely than women to
seek advice from peers may be partially due to men’s perception of higher social costs
to asking for advice (Studdard and Munchus, 2009), particularly in the context of an
informal peer-to-peer relationship rather than one with a professional business advisor.
 JSBED We believe these findings add nuance to the literature on gender differences in
23,1 entrepreneurial networking and merit future investigation.
We tested business and owner characteristics found in previous research to be
associated with external advice seeking, and found both main effects on peer advice
seeking and interactions with type of peer advisor. Some associations differed from those
found in previous research that defined informal advisors as friends and relatives.
200 For example, Bennett and Robson (1999, p. 169) reported that micro-businesses with
fewer than five employees were more likely to have used a business friend or relative for
advice compared to somewhat larger, but still small, businesses (20-50 employees).
Here, we found the opposite relationship between size and the use of peer advisors, as the
owners of larger businesses were more likely to have sought advice from peers they had
had met in person compared to owners of microbusinesses (although size did not affect
the likelihood of seeking advice from an online-only peer). Although newer businesses are
generally believed to need external advice the most, here there was no association
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

between business age and peer advice-seeking. This could reflect the fact that it takes
time to identify suitable peer advisors, or that informal peer advisors provide different
types of advice than formal sources.
We also found that public agency usage was positively associated with having
sought peer advice, with no indication that peer advisors acted as substitutes for public
sector sources. This could reflect differences in owners’ general tendency to seek help,
as well as the fact that public agency advisors sometimes inform owners about sources
of peer advice (such as dedicated internet forums). Similarly, the positive association
between peer advice seeking and the use of co-working facilities and/or incubators
could reflect both individual differences in motivations as well as an opportunity effect.
Owners more inclined to network with peers may be more likely to make use of these
facilities, and these services may also foster introductions to non-local entrepreneurs
the owner would not otherwise have met.
Results supported our argument that distinguishing between different types of peer
advisors is necessary to understand their use. Two business characteristics –
acquisition/founding and business performance – interacted significantly with type/
location of peer advisors. In comparison to founders, those respondents who had taken
over an existing business were not any more or less likely to seek peer advice in
general, but they were more likely to have consulted a local peer and less likely to
consult an online peer they had never met in person. This result suggests that those
who acquire a business may take advantage of existing social capital, analogous to
Greve and Salaff’s (2003) hypothesis discussed earlier, although additional research
would be necessary to test this.
Business owners who reported growth were especially likely to have sought advice
from an online-only peer, although not from peers met in person. Seeking advice from
peers known only online may reflect the owner’s growth orientation, a more focussed
search for advice, and/or the utility of weak ties with novel information. This last
possibility is particularly intriguing and merits attention. As suggested by an
anonymous reviewer, we also conducted a post-hoc analysis using reported
performance (growth, stability, or decline) as the dependent variable with an ordinal
logistic regression model. The same set of business and owner characteristics, along
with advice-seeking from the three peer sources, were used as predictor variables.
Online-only peer advice significantly predicted performance, while having received
advice from local and non-local peers did not. (Public agency assistance was not
significantly associated with performance, while owners of larger and newer
 businesses were more likely to report better performance). Essentially, this supports Small
an association between online-only advice seeking and performance, although as a business
cross-sectional study this finding should be interpreted with caution.
owners’
advice-seeking
Limitations
Although strengths of this study include the large number of respondents and the
diversity of sectors represented, it has the standard limitations of cross-sectional 201
surveys. The type of advice sought from peers, or its quality, may vary over time.
This would be an important question for future research, especially given related
research on temporality as a moderating influence on the effects of external networks
(Stam et al., 2014). Longitudinal research would be needed to test causal relationships
between peer advice and business performance.
We were limited in the number of additional questions that could be added to an
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

already lengthy survey, and therefore could not assess specific motivations or collect
detailed information about peer interactions. In particular, it would be useful to
know which specific internet sites and social media tools small business owners use
to network with one another, and how they are perceived. Such factors, as well as the
personality of the entrepreneur and the uncertainty of the external environment
(see Heyden et al., 2013), would likely explain additional variance in peer advice seeking.
Although all of the data here were self-reported, questions were about objective facts
and thus less likely to be affected by response bias. The significant interaction between
self-reported business performance and type of peer advisor also indicates that
individual differences in social desirability or response biases were unlikely to have
been an issue.

Implications
In this study we contribute a novel perspective to the literature on strong and weak
ties in networking. Although some previous entrepreneurship research has found
support from strong ties to be most beneficial to the success of new small businesses
(Brüderl and Preisendörfer, 1998), research in other contexts has shown that advice
from weak ties can have distinct advantages (Constant et al., 1996). Here we found
that owners who had received advice from peers they had never met in person were
more likely to report better business performance, even after controlling for other
relevant factors. Yet the results presented here also suggest that local small business
owners (who would be most likely to represent strong ties) are the default source of
peer advisors. This is perhaps not surprising given the established importance of
proximity to communication, and owner-managers in one’s local community may
typically be the easiest peers to identify, form relationships with, and perhaps to
trust. Extra effort on the part of the entrepreneur or external prompts may be needed
to use non-local peer advisors, whether met in person or online. Future research
investigating effects of peer advisors that specifically contrasts weak and strong tie
peers would be desirable.
Based on their data showing the importance of advice networks to new technology
venture performance, West and Noel (2009, p. 18) wrote that “economic development
authorities [should] consider effective methods for building and sponsoring local
networks that entrepreneurs can tap into.” From an applied standpoint, the results
presented here imply that development authorities should also consider how to
promote non-local networking for small business entrepreneurs as well.
 JSBED Most importantly, our results suggest that the development and evaluation of public
23,1 initiatives intended to foster networking among small business owners should
incorporate internet-based services. Small business owners are already relying on
online networking tools to a surprising degree, and this trend is likely to intensify.
In particular, there is a need for research examining which sites small business owners
use to connect with their peers and how they perceive them, in order to better understand
202 which design features promote trust and communication quality. The potential
advantages of forums and social media services in helping small business entrepreneurs
access specialized and cost-effective peer advice deserve attention.

References
Allen, T.J. (2000), “Architecture and communication among product development engineers”,
Engineering Management Society, Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE, pp. 153-158.
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

Alvarez, S.A. and Busenitz, L.W. (2001), “The entrepreneurship of resource-based theory”, Journal
of Management, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 755-775.
Babson College (2014), “Stimulating small business growth: progress report on Goldman Sachs
10,000 small businesses”, available at: www.goldmansachs.com/citizenship/10000-small-
businesses/US/news-and-events/10ksb-impact-report-2014/program-report.pdf (accessed
April 20, 2014).
Barney, J. (1991), “Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage”, Journal of Management,
Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 99-120.
Bennett, R.J. and Robson, P.J. (1999), “The use of external business advice by SMEs in Britain”,
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 155-180.
Bennett, R.J. and Robson, P.J. (2004), “The role of trust and contract in the supply of business
advice”, Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 28 No. 4, pp. 471-488.
Bennett, R.J., Bratton, W.A. and Robson, P.J. (2000), “Business advice: the influence of distance”,
Regional Studies, Vol. 34 No. 9, pp. 813-828.
Bennett, R.J., Robson, P.J. and Bratton, W.A. (2001), “The influence of location on the use by SMEs
of external advice and collaboration”, Urban Studies, Vol. 38 No. 9, pp. 1531-1557.
Birley, S., Cromie, S. and Myers, A. (1991), “Entrepreneurial networks: their emergence in Ireland
and overseas”, International Small Business Journal, Vol. 9 No. 4, pp. 56-74.
Bøllingtoft, A. and Ulhøi, J.P. (2005), “The networked business incubator – leveraging
entrepreneurial agency?”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 265-290.
Bosworth, G. (2009), “Education, mobility, and rural business development”, Journal of Small
Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 16 No. 4, pp. 660-677.
Brenner, J. and Smith, A. (2013), “72% of Online adults are social networking site users”,
Pew Research, available at: www.pewinternet.org/2013/08/05/72-of-online-adults-are-
social-networking-site-users/ (accessed March 12, 2014).
Brüderl, J. and Preisendörfer, P. (1998), “Network support and the success of newly founded
businesses”, Small Business Economics, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 213-225.
Burt, R.S. (1992), Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition, Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA.
Chell, E. and Baines, S. (2000), “Networking, entrepreneurship, and microbusiness behavior”,
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Vol. 12 No. 3, pp. 195-215.
Chen, H., Gompers, P., Kovner, A. and Lerner, J. (2010), “Buy local? The geography of venture
capital”, Journal of Urban Economics, Vol. 67 No. 1, pp. 90-102.
 Cheshire, C. (2011), “Online trust, trustworthiness, or assurance?”, Daedalus, Vol. 140 No. 4, Small
pp. 49-58.
business
Chrisman, J.J., McMullan, E. and Hall, J. (2005), “The influence of guided preparation on the long- owners’
term performance of new ventures”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 20 No. 6, pp. 769-791.
Constant, D., Sproull, L. and Kiesler, S. (1996), “The kindness of strangers: the usefulness of
advice-seeking
electronic weak ties for technical advice”, Organization Science, Vol. 7 No. 2, pp. 119-135.
Cooper, A.C., Woo, C., Dunkelberg, Y. and William, C. (1989), “Entrepreneurship and the initial 203
size of firms”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 4 No. 5, pp. 317-334.
Cumming, D.J. and Fischer, E. (2012), “Publicly funded business advisory services and
entrepreneurial outcomes”, Research Policy, Vol. 41 No. 2, pp. 467-481.
Davidsson, P. and Honig, B. (2003), “The role of social and human capital among nascent
entrepreneurs”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 18 No. 3, pp. 301-331.
Falemo, B. (1989), “The firm’s external persons: entrepreneurs or network actors?”,
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 167-177.

Fielden, S.L. and Hunt, C.M. (2011), “Online coaching: an alternative source of social support for
female entrepreneurs during venture creation”, International Small Business Journal,
Vol. 29 No. 4, pp. 345-359.
Fischer, E. and Reuber, A.R. (2003), “Support for rapid‐growth firms: a comparison of the views of
founders, government policymakers, and private sector resource providers”, Journal of
Small Business Management, Vol. 41 No. 4, pp. 346-365.
Fischer, E. and Reuber, A.R. (2011), “Social interaction via new social media: (how) can
interactions on twitter affect effectual thinking and behavior?”, Journal of Business
Venturing, Vol. 26 No. 1, pp. 1-18.
Gedajlovic, E., Honig, B., Moore, C.B., Payne, G.T. and Wright, M. (2013), “Social capital and
entrepreneurship: a schema and research agenda”, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice,
Vol. 37 No. 3, pp. 455-478.
Gloor, P.A., Dorsaz, P., Fuehres, H. and Vogel, M. (2013), “Choosing the right friends-predicting
success of startup entrepreneurs and innovators through their online social network
structure”, International Journal of Organisational Design and Engineering, Vol. 3 No. 1,
pp. 67-85.
Granovetter, M.S. (1973), “The strength of weak ties”, American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 78
No. 6, pp. 1360-1380.
Greve, A. and Salaff, J.W. (2003), “Social networks and entrepreneurship”, Entrepreneurship
Theory and Practice, Vol. 28 No. 1, pp. 1-22.
Gronum, S., Verreynne, M.L. and Kastelle, T. (2012), “The role of networks in small and medium‐
sized enterprise innovation and firm performance”, Journal of Small Business Management,
Vol. 50 No. 2, pp. 257-282.
Harris, L., Rae, A. and Misner, I. (2012), “Punching above their weight: the changing role of
networking in SMEs”, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 19 No. 2,
pp. 335-351.
Heyden, M.L., Van Doorn, S., Reimer, M., Van Den Bosch, F.A. and Volberda, H.W. (2013),
“Perceived environmental dynamism, relative competitive performance, and top
management team heterogeneity: examining correlates of upper echelons’ advice-
seeking”, Organization Studies, Vol. 34 No. 9, pp. 1327-1356.
Hill, N., Bartol, K.M., Tesluk, P.E. and Langa, G.A. (2009), “Organizational context and face-to face
interaction: influences on the development of trust and collaborative nehaviors in
computer-mediated groups”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,
Vol. 108 No. 2, pp. 187-201.
 JSBED Hoang, H. and Antoncic, B. (2003), “Network-based research in entrepreneurship: a critical
review”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 165-187.
23,1
Johnson, S., Webber, D.J. and Thomas, W. (2007), “Which SMEs use external business advice?
A multivariate subregional study”, Environment and Planning A, Vol. 39 No. 8,
pp. 1981-1997.
Kautonen, T., Zolin, R., Kuckertz, A. and Viljamaa, A.A. (2010), “Ties that blind? How strong ties
204 affect small business owner-managers’ perceived trustworthiness of their advisors”,
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 189-209.
Kuhn, K.M. and Galloway, T.L. (2015), “With a little help from my competitors: peer networking
among artisan entrepreneurs”, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Vol. 39 No. 3,
pp. 571-600.
Lerner, J. (1995), “Venture capitalists and the oversight of private firms”, Journal of Finance,
Vol. 50 No. 1, pp. 301-318.
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

Levin, D.Z. and Cross, R.R. (2004), “The strength of weak ties you can trust: the mediating
role of trust in effective knowledge transfer”, Management Science, Vol. 50 No. 11,
pp. 1477-1490.
McAdam, M. and Marlow, S.S. (2011), “Sense and sensibility: the role of business incubator client
advisors in assisting high-technology entrepreneurs to make sense of investment readiness
status”, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Vol. 23 Nos 7-8, pp. 449-468.
McCullagh, P. (1980), “Regression models for ordinal data”, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society:
Series B, Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 109-142.
McDonald, M.L. and Westphal, J.D. (2003), “Getting by with the advice of their friends: CEOs’
advice networks and firms’ strategic responses to poor performance”, Administrative
Science Quarterly, Vol. 48 No. 1, pp. 1-32.
McGrath, C.A., Vance, C.M. and Gray, E.R. (2003), “With a little help from their friends: exploring
the advice networks of software entrepreneurs”, Creativity and Innovation Management,
Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 2-10.
Mount, I. (2012), “In meetings on the web, owners turn to owners for advice and support”,
New York Times, May 24, p. B6.
Naquin, C.E. and Paulson, G.D. (2003), “Online bargaining and interpersonal trust”, Journal of
Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 1, pp. 113-120.
Pendergast, J.F., Gange, S.J., Newton, M.A., Lindstrom, M.J., Palta, M. and Fisher, M.R. (1996),
“A survey of methods for analyzing clustered binary response data”, International
Statistical Review, Vol. 64 No. 1, pp. 89-118.
Ramsden, M. and Bennett, R.J. (2005), “The benefits of external support to SMEs: ‘hard’ versus
‘soft’ outcomes and satisfaction levels”, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise
Development, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 227-243.
Rice, M.P. (2002), “Co-production of business assistance in business incubators: an exploratory
study”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 163-187.
Ring, J.K., Peredo, A.M. and Chrisman, J.J. (2010), “Business networks and economic development
in rural communities in the United States”, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Vol. 34
No. 1, pp. 171-195.
Robinson, S. and Stubberud, H.A. (2009), “Sources of advice in entrepreneurship: gender differences
in business owners’ social networks”, International Journal of Entrepreneurship, Vol. 13,
pp. 83-101.
Robson, P.J. and Bennett, R.J. (2000), “SME growth: the relationship with business advice and
external collaboration”, Small Business Economics, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 193-208.
 Robson, P.J., Jack, S.L. and Freel, M.S. (2008), “Gender and the use of business advice: evidence Small
from firms in the Scottish service sector”, Environment and Planning C: Government and
Policy, Vol. 26 No. 2, pp. 292-314.
business
owners’
Rockmann, K.W. and Northcraft, G.B. (2008), “To be or not to be trusted: the influence of media
richness on defection and deception”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision advice-seeking
Processes, Vol. 107 No. 2, pp. 105-122.
Rosen, D., Pascale, R.L. and Hendrickson, B. (2011), “CouchSurfing: belonging and trust 205
in a globally cooperative online social network”, New Media & Society, Vol. 13 No. 6,
pp. 981-998.
Stam, W., Arzlanian, S. and Elfring, T. (2014), “Social capital of entrepreneurs and small firm
performance: a meta-analysis of contextual and methodological moderators”, Journal of
Business Venturing, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 152-173.
Studdard, N.L. and Munchus, G. (2009), “Entrepreneurial firms’ acquisition of knowledge using
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

proactive help-seeking behaviour”, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour &

Research, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 242-261.
Sullivan, D. and Marvel, M. (2011), “How entrepreneurs’ knowledge and network ties relate to the
number of employees in new SMEs”, Journal of Small Business Management, Vol. 49 No. 2,
pp. 185-206.
Watson, J. (2007), “Modeling the relationship between networking and firm performance”, Journal
of Business Venturing, Vol. 22 No. 6, pp. 852-874.
Watson, J. (2012), “Networking: gender differences and the association with firm performance”,
International Small Business Journal, Vol. 30 No. 5, pp. 536-558.
West, G.P. and Noel, T.W. (2009), “The impact of knowledge resources on new venture
performance”, Journal of Small Business Management, Vol. 47 No. 1, pp. 1-22.
Whittington, K.B., Owen-Smith, J. and Powell, W.W. (2009), “Networks, propinquity, and
innovation in knowledge-intensive industries”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 54
No. 1, pp. 90-122.
Wilson, J.M., Straus, S.G. and McEvily, B. (2006), “All in due time: the development of trust in
computer-mediated and face-to-face teams”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, Vol. 99 No. 1, pp. 16-33.
Wren, C. and Storey, D. (2002), “Evaluating the effect of soft business support upon small firm
performance”, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 54 No. 2, pp. 334-365.

Further reading
Jay, L. and Schaper, M. (2003), “Which advisers do micro-firms use? Some Australian evidence”,
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, Vol. 10 No. 2, pp. 136-143.

(The Appendix follows overleaf.)

 JSBED Appendix
23,1

Characteristic Frequency %

Industry sector
206 Service 280 46.0
Retail/wholesale 209 34.3
Manufacturing 42 6.9
Agriculture 30 4.9
Technology 48 7.9
Origin of the business
Started from scratch 470 77.2
Acquired an existing business 139 22.8
Downloaded by New York University At 14:01 09 February 2016 (PT)

How long owner has had business

Less than 1 year 56 9.2
Between 1 and 3 years 114 18.7
Between 3 and 5 years 107 17.6
Between 5 and 10 years 114 18.7
10 years or more 218 35.8
Gender
Male 333 55.0
Female 276 45.0
Education
High school/GED 54 8.9
Trade school 47 7.7
Some college 105 17.2
Associate degree 80 13.1
Bachelors degree 219 36.0
Advanced degree 104 17.1
Age
Table AI. 29 and under 31 5.1
Descriptive 30-39 years 103 16.9
characteristics of 40-49 years 156 25.6
respondent 50-59 years 206 33.8
businesses and 60-69 years 95 15.6
owners 70 or older 18 3.0

Corresponding author
Associate Professor Kristine Kuhn can be contacted at: kmkuhn@wsu.edu

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com