Uncertainty, social choice and social structure of economic life: A micro-macro perspective.

摘要

This dissertation examines how micro-level social choices that economic actors make lead to macro-level structural changes, which in turn inform future choices that these actors make. In particular, it investigates how choices that venture capital investors make in syndicating their deals with other investors in response to exogenous uncertainties lead to new social structures within the industry, which in turn influence future syndications. This study argues that when economic actors are uncertain about the performance of others, such as in venture capital industry, they use other actors' status as a heuristic for their performance. Because of uncertainties that these actors face in their environment, they will tend to invest in deals with actors who have higher, same or lower status. Conceptualizing the centrality of actors in the network of investments as the salient status characteristic, this study demonstrates that investors' decisions about with whom they syndicate their deals (operationalized by centrality-based homophily) alters the social structure of the network of venture capital investments (operationalized by network centralization), and create a new status ordering in the industry.