Conversations and Gestures of Small Business Owners with their Suppliers: Exploring Social Content in a Pure Business Relation

This research attempts to capture social conversation and social gestures in an interaction between buyers and suppliers. These buyers operate within a small business context. Using qualitative probing methods, twenty five respondents from a small city, Udupi in Karnataka, India have been interviewed. Findings of the study plainly demonstrate the existence of personal specific and socially relevant content in a conversation between buyer and supplier. To develop this view we deployed economic sociology perspective as transactional cost theory in its purview does not include social relevance of small business. The research broadly contributes to the domain of economic sociology as it build on the work of Uzzi (1996, 1997) by critically assessing the extant literature in the field of transactional cost economics and economic sociology.