ABSTRACT
This paper aims to examine such an industrial district, but with the focus upon internal connections, most particularly business and capital networks. While business networks are notoriously difficult to define and research, they are characterised here as 'high-trust linkages connecting to a series of entities',
Following the Joint Stock Companies Act of 1855, enterprises were allowed to adopt limited liability and call upon shareholders as a source of finance. Sheffield, along with Oldham, was a centre of limited liability company formations, following the liberalisation of company law, whereas much of the rest of England was slow to adopt joint-stock form. This paper considers groups of individuals who consistently purchased shares in the region's joint stock companies to form a 'capital network'. Networks of investors are especially pertinent when examining issues of financial provision in an era when funds from family and friends formed a crucial source of supply. In this way, social networks can be seen to impact upon business networks. The aim of the paper is to provide a rigorous analysis, based upon empirical evidence, of the operation of networks as channels of information and resources (in this case, finance) and their impact upon the economic performance of a particular industrial district.
