Page - (000084) - in Knowledge and Networks

75 From Families to Friends: Building Knowledge-Creating Economies in Developing Contexts The role of family ties as bridges for localized learning should not be overempha- sized, because family bridges have important weaknesses. First, stability of family ties is at odds with what dynamic learning requires in some fields. Family ties cre- ated through marriage and birth tend to be a lifetime commitment, meaning that family networks develop very slowly and selectively. The fact that they emerge only gradually implies that the number of bridges each individual or family can have through the strong ties of kinship is restricted by the size of the family. At the indi- vidual or community level, effective family bridges as knowledge pipelines there- fore cannot increase substiantially in a short period. In sectors such as high-tech industries, where short life cycles of products and technologies require a consistent combination of new ideas from various sources, family networks are incapable of channeling the needed knowledge flows. Stable family ties work best for learning from certain sources in a mature technological field (e.g., traditional industries) or in trading activities that require a high level of trust rather than technological inno- vation (e.g., the diamond sector). Second, localization of family networks reduces the variety of knowledge that family bridges can provide, since geographical proximity of family members restricts their function as pipelines for external learning. In developing contexts traditional family networks generally do not go beyond local communities. The chances that family bridges will become global pipelines are quite low in such Fig. 4.2 A community well connected by bridges between family members and friends (Design by author) 4 Family Networks for Learning and Knowledge Creation