Abstract Research Summary During armed conflicts, when the rule of law collapses, bribery often becomes prevalent. Yet, the effect of bribery on firm performance under those circumstances remains unclear. Bribery could provide access to scarce resources, but it could also be the result of extortion. This study argues that bribes can improve firm performance during certain conflicts, when violence reduces public officials' ability to threaten firms. Using longitudinal data from businesses in Nigeria during the Boko Haram insurgency in 2009–2014, I find that firms exposed to Boko Haram attacks that bribed outperformed firms that did not bribe. Qualitative data suggest that the insurgency limited public officials' ability to threaten firms, making bribes less a means of rent extraction and more a way for firms to access resources. Managerial Summary In many economies, bribery is widespread despite being illegal. This study shows that during times of violent conflict bribery can be a way for firms to maintain operations despite the disruption. Using data from firms in Nigeria during the 2009–2014 Boko Haram insurgency, I find that firms that bribed tended to suffer less from the effects of the insurgency. Bribing firms were better able to secure protection and access transportation networks. At the same time, the conflict reduced local officials' ability to extort firms, making bribes less likely to involve extortion. These results highlight the extreme circumstances that firms face during violent conflicts and the illicit practices that may enable them to survive in the short run.

Abstract Research Summary This study explores how entrepreneurs' social capital affects their resilience to localized shocks. Using a unique longitudinal survey of entrepreneurs during a surge of violent protests in Togo during 2017 and 2018, I explore how different kinds of relationships affect entrepreneurs' performance. Results show that proximity to violent protests caused entrepreneurs' profits to drop by 20%. This decrease, however, was mitigated by entrepreneurs' ties to their local communities and by their non‐colocated advice relationships, which were ties to geographically distant advisers. In contrast, colocated advisers, those who were spatially proximate, were harmful to their performance. These findings show that social capital can have conflicting effects on entrepreneurs' resilience, depending on the kinds of relationships they consist of and how those relationships are exposed to the shock. Managerial Summary Relationships are critical to entrepreneurs' performance. Yet, during local crises, such as violent protests, it can be difficult to know which relationships to rely on. Studying entrepreneurs in Togo during a sudden surge of violent protests, I found that two kinds of relationships reduced the negative impact of the localized shock: ties to local communities and advisers located outside the crisis area. In contrast, advisers located nearby, who were also affected by the crisis, amplified the protests' negative effects. These findings suggest that entrepreneurs who can afford to build stronger ties to their local communities and have more distant advisers may be better positioned to minimize losses during localized shocks.

Relationships with peers help entrepreneurs learn and improve firm performance. Recent scholarship confirms that events—social gatherings such as mixers, conferences, or training programs—can help entrepreneurs build valuable social connections. Yet, for entrepreneurs in developing economies, networking frictions may make connecting with peers challenging and undermine the benefits of events. We argue that when networking frictions are high, the value of events will lie more in connecting neighbors rather than bringing together distant peers. In the presence of networking frictions, neighbors are both less likely to be someone the entrepreneur has already learned from and easier to sustain a relationship with. To test this argument, we use data from a series of networking events in Togo during which entrepreneurs were randomly assigned to meet with peers from across the city of Lomé. We find that entrepreneurs who were assigned to neighboring peers were much more likely to sustain a relationship, learn from their peer’s management knowledge, and in turn benefit more: Profits increase by 10% when entrepreneurs get to know peers who are located on average 1 km closer to them. Our results highlight the central role that networking frictions play in shaping who entrepreneurs in developing economies can successfully learn from. This paper was accepted by Lamar Pierce, organizations. Funding: Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation [Dissertation Fellowship] and the Strategic Management Society [SRF Dissertation Fellowship]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data files are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.00281 .

Recent field experiments demonstrate that advice, mentorship, and feedback from randomly assigned peers improve entrepreneurial performance. These results raise a natural question: what is preventing entrepreneurs and managers from forming these peer connections themselves? We argue that entrepreneurs may be under-networked because they lack the necessary social skills—the ability to communicate effectively and interact collaboratively with new acquaintances—that allow them to match efficiently with knowledgeable peers. We use a field experiment in the context of a business training program in Togo to test if a short social skills training module increases the number and complementarity of peers that participants choose to learn from. We find that social skills training led entrepreneurs to match with 50% more peers and that more of those matches were based on complementary managerial skill. Finally, the training also increased entrepreneurs’ monthly profits by approximately 20%. Further analyses point to improvements in networking and advice as the drivers of performance improvements. Our findings suggest that social skills help entrepreneurs build relationships that create value for both themselves and their peers. This paper was accepted by Alfonso Gambardella, business strategy. Funding: This work was supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation [Dissertation Fellowship] and the Strategic Management Society [SRF Dissertation Fellowship]. Supplemental Material: The online appendix and data are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2022.4334 .

This paper examines the critical role of gender in the commercialization of social ventures. We argue that cultural beliefs about what is perceived to be appropriate work for each gender influence how founders of social ventures incorporate commercial activity into their ventures. Specifically, we argue and show that although cultural beliefs that disassociate women from commercial activity may result in female social venture founders being less likely to use commercial activity than their male counterparts, these effects are moderated by cultural beliefs about gender and commercial activity within founders’ local communities. The presence of female business owners in the same community mitigates the role of founders’ gender on the use of commercial activity. We examine these issues through a novel sample of 584 social ventures in the United States. We constructively replicate and extend these findings with a supplemental analysis of a second sample, the full population of new nonprofit organizations founded during a two-year period in the United States (n = 31,160). By highlighting how gendered aspects of both the social and commercial sectors interact to shape the use of commercial activity by social venture founders, our findings contribute to research on hybrid organizations in the social sector, communities as a context for the enactment of gender, and the enactment of gender in entrepreneurship. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2017.1144 .