The Influence of the Manager’s Relational Network on Access to Information: The Moderating Role of Ethnicity

The Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) is an organization weakly endowed with intangible resources, however essential for its functioning. To optimize its performance, it must acquire information, which is a strategic intangible resource. This one is available through the manager’s relational network, which includes a variety of social ties, including ethnic ties. The objective of this work is to allow the manager to understand the moderating influence of the ethnic group on the relationship between his relational network and access to information. The multigroup analysis carried out using Structural Equations (EQS) on a sample of 243 SME managers reveals that the nature of social ties, unlike the proximity of actors, positively determines access to information. In addition, ethnicity moderates the relationship between the relational network and access to information.