[3-4] ... the institutional environment cannot be separated from the social fabric of both business elites and working people, whose values and behaviour both influence and are influenced by it. National characteristics are inevitably a vital starting point for the comparative study of business. However, in the 18th and 19th centuries there emerged numerous and quite varied family-controlled cotton firms, which can only be understood in the context of their local and personal networks. .... increase confidence and reduce uncertainty, through the development of mutual trust and flows of information, networks have become an increasingly important way of understanding business arangements in recent years....