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The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical analysis of factors that affect support networks among retirees in 13 countries.

It examines two propositions drawing from support network theory and the classification of countries by welfare systems. It uses fixed‐effect causal models to examine how retirement and socio‐demographic variables influence kinship and friendship support networks. Data are drawn from the Social Relations and Support Systems module of the International Social Survey Programme 2001.

The results show that retirees' friendship‐based support networks are almost one‐third smaller than those of working persons. Furthermore, this difference is greater in welfare systems that spend more on social well‐being.

However, the relationship between informal support networks and welfare systems is complex, which indicates a need to further the debate on the co‐existence of formal and informal aid systems.

This study's main sociological confirmation is that the relationship between the size of support networks and the type of welfare system is irregular and complex. The results make a significant contribution to the debate on the relationship between formal and informal care among a group of people during a critical life‐cycle phase, such as retirement.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the supportive capacity of social networks of older lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual (LGBT) and heterosexual adults using data from Understanding Society. The principal research objective is to discern whether the companionship and community networks of older LGBT adults compensate for weaker kinship networks.

Understanding Society has data on the frequency of interaction with and proximity to family, friends and the wider community to quantify supportive capacity. Bivariate analyses reveal similarities and differences in network supportive capacity between older LGBT and heterosexual adults.

The study finds that older LGBT adults have significantly weaker kinship networks than do older heterosexual adults. Further to this, the companionship and community networks of older LGBT adults do not compensate for weaker kinship networks.

In essence, this means that many older LGBT adults have weak social networks which increases the likelihood of receiving little or no social contact and informal support which may have implications for their physical and mental well-being. This could be especially problematic for individuals who have care needs where in the context of England, the provision of state funded social care is patchy.

This study contributes evidence to an under researched area of social network analysis. Little research has explored the social networks of older LGBT adults compared with older heterosexual adults; specifically the supportive network capacity of different types of network.

Kinship structures in Ambridge have been analysed using social network analysis (SNA) showing a network of a ‘small world’ type with 75 individual people linked by birth or marriage. Further, the network shows four major cliques: the first two centred on Aldridge and Archer matriarchies and the second where through the marriages of the third generation the Grundies, Carters, Bellamies and Snells connect together. The chapter considers the possible futures for kinship networks in the village, arguing either a version of the status quo or The Headlam Hypothesis through which Archers assume less importance and the strength of the weak ties in the network assume more prominence.

Based on the data obtained from a questionnaire of 595 people, the authors explore the relative importance of consumers, checking whether socioeconomic variables influence their centrality, detecting the communities within the network to which they belong, identifying consumption patterns and checking whether there is any relationship between co-marketing and consumer choices.

A multilayer network is created from data collected through a consumer survey to identify customers’ choices in seven different markets. The authors focus the analysis on a smaller kinship and cohabitation network and apply the LART network community detection algorithm. To verify the association between consumers’ centrality and variables related to their respective socioeconomic profile, the authors develop an econometric model to measure their impact on consumer’s degree centrality.

Based on 595 responses analysing individual consumers, the authors find out which consumers invest and which variables influence consumers’ centrality. Using a smaller sample of 70 consumers for whom they know kinship and cohabitation relationships, the authors detect communities with the same consumption patterns and verify that this may be an adequate way to establish co-marketing strategies.

Network analysis has become a widely used technique in the extraction of knowledge on consumers. This paper’s main (and novel) contribution lies in providing a greater understanding on how multilayer networks represent hidden databases with potential knowledge to be considered in business decisions. Centrality and community detection are crucial measures in network science which enable customers with the highest potential value to be identified in a network. Customers are increasingly seen as multidimensional, considering their preferences in various markets.

This study aims to examine the moderating effect of firm age and size on the relationship between network characteristics (network centrality, network density and tie strength) and firm performance. This study also aims to investigate the difference in the effect of network characteristics on the firm performance of Javanese and Minang ethnic enterprises.

An explanatory research design was adopted, which involved a survey in the form of a structured questionnaire of target owners and managers of 34 Javanese ethnic enterprises in North Sumatra, Indonesia and 100 Minang ethnic enterprises in Yogyakarta, Central Java, Jakarta and Bogor, Indonesia. The data is analysed using structural equation modelling.

The findings of this study confirm resource dependency and social capital theory. Network centrality, network density and tie strength have a significant effect on firm performance. The results also show support for the moderating role of firm age on the relationship between network characteristics and firm performance. The moderating role of firm size is not supported. The comparative test of the influence of the three network characteristics on ethnic enterprise performance confirms that Javanese ethnic enterprises have identity-based networks, while Minang ethnic enterprises use calculative-based networks.

The originality of this study lies in the investigation of the role of family and external partners in the running of ethnic enterprises at start-up and during the growth phase. The definition of “family” is based on a kinship perspective due to the specificity of Asian cultures, particularly in Indonesia. Of the hundreds of tribes in Indonesia, the Javanese and Minang were chosen because both are well-known as entrepreneurial tribes, have unique cultural values and have active migrants to other provinces.

Entrepreneurs may wish to be selective about which relatives to include or exclude in their businesses. For example, their child might be inept but their niece might be outstanding. What aspects of kinship systems affect their ability to make these sorts of choices? What enables them to bend their ties of kinship and marriage to the interests of their business? Most broadly, what dimensions of kinship lend themselves to tactical or instrumental actions? This question is sweeping just as my meaning of “entrepreneurs” is very broad: those who take actions with the goal of growing their capital (Stewart, 1991). This capital may take the form of newly started ventures, dynastic firms, or even in precapitalist systems other social forms, for example, rural estates farmed by followers.

Peasant political order is functionally related to the ties of kinship. Kinship ties are of crucial importance to its effective functioning. Peasant communities in Bangladesh deserve mention. Most peasant communities here are by and large undeveloped hinterland. We may convey the status of ‘virgin village’ to those peasant communities yet visited by any survey team or any voluntary organisations involved in the process of rural modernisation. Here socio‐economic and political activities are organised around kinship nexus. Institutional foundation of kinship is a pervasive phenomenon. Viewed in this perspective kinship is an institution encompassing all aspects of life. The peasants have most intimate relationship with this institution marked by affection, reciprocity, solidarity and co‐operation.

Although the theory of cumulative causation posits a “saturation point” at which all members of a rural community who are potential transnational migrants will have migrated, in the case of dynamic out-migration centers, this saturation point may never be reached. This is because growth centers – the growth often having been propelled by wages and remittances of prior migrants – attract in-migrants from poorer, less dynamic, surrounding ranchos that eventually become incorporated in transnational migration networks of the more dynamic rancho. It is also due to intermarriage as well as friendship and ritual kinship ties between members of the core rancho and surrounding ranchos.

One of the most important cultural values in Chinese societies is family‐oriented collectivism. This cultural value has had much impact on the structures and strategies of overseas Chinese firms. Influenced by this cultural value, traditional Chinese firms prefer family ownership and stress hierarchy and centralized decision making, which in turn influence the business strategies of these firms. In recent years, however, the majority of Chinese societies have been in transition, and traditional Chinese culture is also changing. These developments have brought about changes in strategies of the overseas Chinese firms. To study these changes, this paper focuses on the manufacturing industries in a major emerging market, China, and reports evidence of changes in both culture and business strategy of overseas Chinese firms. Concludes with a discussion on the implications of the findings for both researchers and practitioners.

Past research has suggested the influence of family‐oriented collectivistic culture on the behavior and performance of traditional Chinese manufacturing firms. However, insufficient empirical research has been conducted to empirically test the influence. More importantly, insufficient research has been conducted to test how the collectivistic culture in Chinese societies would affect the performance of manufacturing firms. This paper addresses these issues by comparing the behaviors and performance of two groups of firms in China, i.e., investment from overseas Chinese firms and investment from non‐Chinese Western firms, in one of China's fast‐growing manufacturing industries. Interesting differences are found between the overseas Chinese firms and those from other foreign countries. The findings support the influence of societal culture on firms' behavior and performance, but do not support the predictions on performance based on the arguments of cultural distance. This paper concludes with a discussion on implications of the findings for both researchers and practitioners.