（10） dependable sources of labor and clientele from the
owner's ethnic group. Such self-help networks， which
encourage and support ethnic minority entrepreneurs，
consist of “primary” institutions， those closest to the
individual in shaping his or her behavior and beliefs.
（15） They are characterized by the face-to-face association
and cooperation of persons united by ties of mutual
concern. They form an intermediate social level between
the individual and larger “secondary ” institutions based
on impersonal relationships. Primary institutions
（20） comprising the support network include kinship peer，
and neighborhood or community subgroups.
A major function of self-help networks is financial
support. Most scholars agree that minority business
owners have depended primarily on family funds and
（25） ethnic community resources for investment capital.
Personal savings have been accumulated， often through
frugal living habits that require sacrifices by the entire
family and are thus a product of long-term family finan-
cial behavior. Additional loans and gifts from relatives，
（30） forthcoming because of group obligation rather than
narrow investment calculation， have supplemented
personal savings. Individual entrepreneurs do not neces-
sarily rely on their kin because they cannot obtain finan-
cial backing from commercial resources. They may actu-
（35） ally avoid banks because they assume that commercial
institutions either cannot comprehend the special needs
of minority enterprise or charge unreasonably high
interest rates.
Within the larger ethnic community， rotating credit
（40） associations have been used to raise capital. These asso-
ciations are informal clubs of friends and other trusted
members of the ethnic group who make regular contri-
butions to a fund that is given to each contributor in
rotation. One author estimates that 40 percent of New
（45）York Chinatown firms established during 1900-1950
utilized such associations as their initial source of
capital. However， recent immigrants and third or fourth
generations of older groups now employ rotating credit
associations only occasionally to raise investment funds.
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