Page - (000081) - in Knowledge and Networks

72 to talk about work with family members, the high level of trust commonly present in family networks makes the exchange of economic knowledge virtually inevita- ble. How does this family-based knowledge-sharing come about? Figure 4.1 depicts the structure of a typical family network.2 Unlike friendship ties, family networks are hierarchical like trees, stratified in generations. Within family trees a husband and a wife, linked horizontally, constitute a pair of nodes in the network. Family ties develop vertically by birth and horizontally by marriage. Created primarily through birth and marriage, all family ties are strong in terms of trust, intimacy, and emotional commitment. As in friendship networks, the strength of a relationship between two individuals in family networks depends on the length of the path between them. In Fig. 4.1, for example, brothers A and D are closer (only two steps between them) than cousins A and E (four steps). Given the different strengths of the relations between brothers and cousins, why are A, D, and E not connected directly in Fig. 4.1? The reason is that brothers, cousins, and other kin- ship connections are derived ties; their relationships are derived from the basic structure of the family networks shown in Fig. 4.1. A and D are brothers because they have common parents, and A and E are cousins because they have common grandparents. Family connections among A, D, and E are created by virtue of their ties with common parents or grandparents. Direct links between A and D or E will be redundant because their connections through parents and grandparents already show their relations. The same consideration also applies to other kinship relations in Fig. 4.1. In fact, distant relatives, especially those between extended families, such as E and F, have few chances of being together and knowing each other. 2 Specifically, Figure 4.1 shows a biological structure of family networks (a map of the biological relationships between family members) and their social structure (a pattern of interaction and com- munication). Social practices in family networks vary in different cultural contexts and time peri- ods. The arguments formulated in this chapter rest on my own observations, which apply to developing economies (especially China) and should not be overgeneralized. I thank Johannes Glückler for this point. Fig. 4.1 Structure of family networks (Design by author) P. Li