Chapter 2 focused on the structural features of networks. These features are determined by the links that are present and how they are arranged among the nodes. Different arrangements of links lead to different shapes, which has consequences for how things might spread through the network, which nodes are important, and how cohesive a collection of nodes is. In empirical research about social networks, the real nodes and links in question will have substantive meaning. Adding those substantive labels to the nodes and links is a start, but we might have additional information about the nodes and links that we would like to incorporate in our study. It is possible to integrate substantive information about nodes and links with structural information in ways that can enrich a network study.

The first chapter explores an area of entrepreneurship in which China in many ways leads the world. As well as considering e-commerce in general the chapter highlights some particularly Chinese innovations. The relevance of social embeddedness to online communication and interaction is widely acknowledged. In addition, there are now many studies which explore how online networks are affected by offline networks. Sociological research on e-commerce nevertheless remains underdeveloped. Little is known about how individuals participating in e-commerce markets take initiatives in creating, expanding, and maintaining online social networks behind the screen. Chapter 1 identifies forms of social embeddedness that while obscure are important to online markets. The chapter develops a concept, ‘personalized anchoring reputation’, in highlighting this phenomenon. Additionally, analysis is presented of an e-sales approach, called by its practitioners ‘fission’, which integrates characteristics of face-to-face transaction with online exchanges.

Different relational dynamics make relationships evolve within entourages. They are here mainly explored from the Caen panel, whose longitudinal dimension allows it to capture detailed movements over time. The diagram of relational dynamics identified in Chapter 3 is taken up again by detailing the main movements articulating relations, contexts and networks: polyvalence/specialization, singularization/embedding, and connection/dissociation. The ways in which these dynamics appear, their frequency, and their evolution over the time of the relationship, and over biographical time, are highlighted here.

Social relations are defined by considering the different dimensions involved: interaction, knowledge, emotional involvement, and, more generally, the "driving force" of the tie, which are its essential elements. This characterization of relationships is continued by mentioning qualities that are very important for their becoming: the multiplexity and "strength" of the ties. To explain the link between relationships, networks, and social circles, the different scales at which the entourage can be considered are then evoked. The questions of the homogeneity of relationships, the resources they may constitute, as well as the different ways in which they can be inscribed in social circles are also addressed. Finally, the various types of regulation involved in the positioning of relationships are presented.

At the beginning of the 1990s, the Internet was starting to become fairly widely used in academic circles. This development raised questions within the community of social science researchers who were studying social networks. Among them was of course that of the changes in relational flows and structures (connectivity, size, density, and composition of personal networks, etc.) that might occur as a result of the increasing diversification and sophistication of communication technologies. For this chapter, we draw on two recent original surveys in addition to the two on which our analyses have so far been based. The first is a questionnaire-based survey conducted in January and February 2014 among 2,700 young people aged between 15 and 25 living in the Toulouse area. The second survey is a detailed questionnaire filled in during face-to-face interviews by some 470 individuals aged 60 and over (the oldest was 100 at the time of the survey) in the Toulouse area. The changes seem to be tending in the direction of a slight reduction in strong ties, an increase in weak or even very weak ties and a strengthening of relational inequalities and homophily.