ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the origins of the surveyed electronics firms to explore the characteristics of the economic environment within which they operate, the time-specific nature of the social and economic processes that operate within it, and dynamic of enterprise embeddedness. It explores the nature of the links firms have with their customers to reflect on the embeddedness of the forward ties in the electronics supply chain. The chapter also discusses the nature and extent of firms' supplier linkages in a similar manner to look back down the supply chain. In contrast to the weakening embeddedness of transactions with their customers, the relationships between the surveyed electronics firms and their suppliers are much more strongly socially constructed. The extent to which small electronics firms are embedded in the socially constructed networks of local economies can be inferred from the nature and form of their buyer supplier relationships.
