This exploratory, empirical study reports on social capital in a commodity-based industry in an emerging market context. We examine whether Brazilian entrepreneurs and SMEs in the Stone industry experience contextual normative pressure sufficient to retard or promote the growth of social capital. Further we link social capital development to internationalization and performance. We find that there is a lack of social capital development and propose that this is related to the country context of Brazil and the stage of development along the industry value chain. We begin to answer the question, essentially, are the benefits of social capital universally implementable or does societal context for social capital retard usage? We suggest propositions for future study.