Embeddedness and growth of small businesses in rural regions

The main theoretical contribution of this paper is the description of double-layered network embeddedness employed by rural business owners, who are embedded in local and regional networks, alongside extra-regional and national (extra-local) networks, in an attempt to overcome some of the distance-related obstacles of their location. Furthermore, our findings suggest that this type of embeddedness, as well as the embeddedness of family members in small businesses, can enhance the growth potential of the local businesses, as does the location of the business in the owner's home or in its close proximity. We propose a spatial model of the embeddedness of small rural businesses at various levels of proximity.