SOCIAL CAPITAL AND RURAL SMALL &MICRO ENTERPRISES. (THE CASE OF LIVESTOCK SMALL ENTERPRISES AT SHARKYA GOVERNORATE IN EGYPT) المشروعات الصغيره و متناهية الصغر " دراسة حالة على مشروعات الانتاج الحيوانى بمحافظة الشرقيه "

The issue of Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE) growth and development ranks high among the Government of Egypt’s priorities. This research examines the contribution of social capital to the performance of livestock small enterprises in rural Egypt. The research was conducted in three villages at Sharkya governorate on a sample of 146 livestock small entrepreneurs who obtained small credit from the Social Fund for Development (SFD). Social capital was represented in trust relationships embodied in social networks between the entrepreneurs and other actors for business purposes. This study addresses two main questions: 1) how important is social capital to livestock small enterprise? 2) how important is social capital to livestock small farm performance? The main argument is that social capital had highly significant effect on the performance and growth of livestock small enterprises, which is defined here, in terms of increasing the demand of their livestock sales. The results of the study showed that small entrepreneurs use social capital to overcome transaction costs through a reduction in information of search costs and risk management. Small entrepreneurs who had developed the appropriate social capital, embodied in networks of trust, were more able to expand their business than those who did not. The results also showed that expansion in livestock small enterprises was significantly related to objective situational conditions and to social capita.