Embedded Entrepreneurship and Evolution of the Modern Textile Industry in the Shahidieh City: An Actor-Network Theory Approach

Authors

1 Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.

2 Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences, Yazd University, Yazd, Iran.

3 Graduated from Yazd University

10.22059/jrd.2025.396981.668930

Abstract

Entrepreneurship has captured the attention of scholars for decades. Over time, personality-based explanations of entrepreneurial behavior have been increasingly marginalized in favor of investigations into the broader social and economic contexts in which entrepreneurship occurs. Two prominent streams of research have emerged in this regard. One stream examines the impact of regional social, cultural, political, and economic structures on the entrepreneurial process. The other stream focuses on the embeddedness of entrepreneurs and how their reach to or facilitate the acquisition of valuable resources. This article examines the role of embedded entrepreneurs in the evolution of the modern textile industry in the Shahidieh region in Yazd, Iran. It explores the influence of geographical, social, and cultural factors on this process, and analyzes how entrepreneurs have leveraged local and family embeddedness to develop this network. We adopt the Actor-Network Theory (ANT) as our framework, especially the four moments of translation (prolematisation, interessement, enrolment, mobilisation). This study employed a qualitative, case-study and multiple data collection methods were utilized, the most important of which was semi-structured interviews. Results indicated that the Shahidieh textile network had passed through two cycles of evolution from 1953 to 2023. The first network cycle is based on the production of carpet cover from 1951 to 1991. The second cycle can be identified by the production of upholstery since 1993. The development of the modern textile industry in Shahidieh can be seen as a prime example of the formation and growth of an actor-network comprising both human actors (local entrepreneurs, familial and local communities of entrepreneurs, local government officials, fabric designers, thread and fabric traders, etc) and non-human entities (socio-economic and industrial heritage, geographical location, technological change in textile, climate change and water scarcity, shifting societal tastes, etc).

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