The Development of Social Relationships in Local Retail Clusters: An Investigation Based on Network Analysis

• Autor(a) principal: Filho, Jorge Renato de Souza Verschoore
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Bortolaso, Ingridi Vargas, Luz, Aruana Rosa Souza
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por; eng
• Título da fonte: Redes (Santa Cruz do Sul. Online)
• Texto Completo: https://online.unisc.br/seer/index.php/redes/article/view/14556
• topic: Clusters Minoristas locales. Análisis de Redes Sociales. Desarrollo Regional.; Retailer Clusters. Social Networks Analysis. Regional Development.; Aglomerados Varejistas Locais; Análise de Redes Sociais; Desenvolvimento Regional.

The literature of business clusters has been studied in the last 30 years. However, the influence of networks' social relations on local retail clusters is not known, and what impacts they have on the economic development of their regions. This article explored the existing social relations between companies belonging to local retail clusters and regional economic developments in the Rio Grande do Sul. For this, 558 managers of companies belonging to 20 local retail clusters were interviewed. This study used a quantitative methodology. Structural properties of social relations were mapped using the UCINET software. Business clusters were grouped. The SNA measures and economic performances of such groups were analyzed and compared using the SPSS software, showing differences between them by applying the Teste Anova. We observed that business clusters with higher economic performance showed weak social relations in terms of density, number of ties, reciprocity, out-degree, indegree, and greater average distance. This article contributes to the literature of business clusters by investigating the social relations of local retail clusters using the SNA method. It also contributes to regional development by exploring the relationship between business clusters and regional service's gross value.