Page - (000082) - in Knowledge and Networks

73 Although they can be contacted through some family members, they are more likely to be as distant as strangers. The fact that they are mutually accessible suggests the role that some family members and ties have as bridges. In Fig. 4.1 the marriage of A and G creates a bridge between two extended fami- lies. Before the marriage, the two extended families were unconnected. After the marriage, although most family members in the two groups still do not know each other,3 they are connected through the sole tie between A and G. In this sense every marriage acts as a bridge in family networks. This bridging function of marriage can partly explain why marriage is so important in traditional societies: It may be the only bridge to leverage resources and knowledge beyond families in such a low- trust context (see Padgett & Ansell, 1993, for an analysis of the Medici family network in the Renaissance, for example). Through marriage, hierarchical family ties, too, can be bridges. For instance, if D marries, then the path between A and D, together with their marriage ties, becomes the bridge between their wives’ families. Knowledge and information can be quickly and reliably shared across family groups through bridges. Suppose that D has some information or opportunity that can be of interest to F. In daily conversation between A and G, A may accidentally divulge this information to G, who, realizing the potential of the information for her brother F, would facilitate information flows between F and D. If further communi- cation and interaction between F and D is required, A and G will endorse these actions. The advantage of family bridges is that, as strong ties, they can be particu- larly effective for repeated interaction and learning, not just one-time information- or opportunity-sharing. Such intensive learning is extremely important for technology diffusion because manufacturing know-how and technical skills are learned in a systematic way by trial and error. Having described the structure of family networks, I now turn to probe the role that family bridges can play for knowledge-sharing in industrial communities. If strong family ties can be bridges—in contradiction to Granovetter’s (1973) conclu- sion that no strong tie is a bridge—then local communities, even those with only strong ties, can be closely connected rather than fragmented into cliques. At this point a difference in focus has to be clarified. Not everyone in local communities is highly relevant to economic development, which is primarily related to agents with a spirit of entrepreneurship and an interest in technological and business learning. As an economic geographer, I thus focus this chapter on social networks of a spe- cific local group—entrepreneurs and professionals—rather than on the general social structure of local communities. This perspective narrows the argument derived from the concept of family bridges. I assert that local business communities can be closely connected through family bridges. Tentative evidence tends to sug- gest that at least this connection is possible in developing regions in which family relations of entrepreneurs are a notable feature. For example, 35 % of the entrepre- neurs in a diamond cluster in India and 57 % of their children married within the local industrial community (Munshi, 2011). In the early development stages of an industrial cluster for aluminum extrusion in China in the 1990s, many entrepreneurs 3 They may meet once at A and G’s wedding. 4 Family Networks for Learning and Knowledge Creation