Peter Berger (1929) is an American sociologist best known for his collaboration with Thomas Luckman in writing The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. That book argues that human reality, and knowledge of it, is a social construct, emerging from the individual or group’s interaction with larger social structures (institutions). Social structures, once widely adopted, lose their history as social constructions (objectivation), and come over time, by the people who live within them, to be deemed natural realities independent of human construction (reification). Berger predicted, in his later book, The Sacred Canopy, near-term all-encompassing secularization of religion, which prediction has proved false, especially in the third world (as Berger himself has acknowledged in his later work, Desecularization).

神圣的帷幕 : 宗教社会学理论之要素 = The sacred canopy elements of a sociological theory of religion

Understanding the small business sector

Maslach Burnout Inventory Manual

Examines the characteristics of the entrepreneurial personality and the effects of changes in the entrepreneur’s personal relationships. According to the empirical findings, becoming an entrepreneur and acting as an entrepreneur are both aspects of the entrepreneur’s learning process, which in turn has an effect on the personality characteristics of the entrepreneur. The entrepreneur’s drive to solve problems (= mastery) had increased, and control by powerful others decreased since the start‐up phase. Changes in the entrepreneur’s relations with others were also observed to have an effect on the entrepreneur’s personality characteristics. The empirical findings also show that as the number of co‐operative partners decreased, control by powerful others also decreased, and that, since the start‐up phase, entrepreneurs whose personal relations had increased also showed a clear increase in mastery.

Entrepreneurship and the characteristics of the entrepreneurial personality

The literature of small business and entrepreneurship is explored. It is established that, although there is an overlap between entrepreneurial firms and small business firms, they are different entities. Using the 1934 work of Schumpeter and recognizing the additions to the field of current writers, a conceptual framework is established for the differentiation of entrepreneurs from small business owners. Keywords: entrepreneurial, Small business

Differentiating Entrepreneurs from Small Business Owners: A Conceptualization

Purpose – Entrepreneurship is currently at the focus of much theoretical, practical and political interest. In Europe, agriculture has faced dramatic pressures for restructuring, and facilitation of the entrepreneurial skills of farmers and stronger entrepreneurial orientation in the rural areas have been hailed as possible solutions for the emerging problems. The aim of this paper is to use this nexus of agriculture and entrepreneurship as an illustrative example, through which the nature of entrepreneurial skills and the elements underpinning their adoption can be examined.Design/methodology/approach – The task is carried out by reflecting theoretically on the concept of entrepreneurial skills and on their embedded nature, before demonstrating the usefulness of the concept as a tool in understanding the case of an enterprising Finnish farmer, active both in conventional farming and in diversified business.Findings – The theoretical and case study analyses reveal that the concept of entrepreneurial skill...

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Developing the entrepreneurial skills of farmers: some myths explored

Purpose – This research shows that entrepreneurship is currently at the focus of much theoretical, practical and political interest. In Europe, agriculture has faced increasing pressures for restructuring: facilitation of marketing and entrepreneurial skills of farmers and a stronger entrepreneurial orientation have been suggested as a possible solution for the emerging problems. The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of entrepreneurial capability of farmers to diversify. The central focus of this article is on the entrepreneurial identity of portfolio farmers in Finland and the extent to which the differences between portfolio farmers, other farmers, and non‐farm rural businesses can be explained.Design/methodology/approach – The subjects of the study were rural small‐business owner‐managers and farmers in Finland. The authors carried out a survey of random samples from three populations, each representing a broad cross‐section of relevant industries, including a sample of non‐farm rural ent...

The split entrepreneurial identity of the farmer

Entrepreneurs and producers : identities of Finnish farmers in 2001 and 2006

The welfare of production animals provokes wide social discussion among the public, yet, despite this, farmers' voices and their representations of animal welfare are rarely heard, even though farmers are the ones actually able to improve animal welfare. Farmers' perceptions of what constitutes animal welfare and how it may be improved can differ from those of consumers and other stakeholders, and therefore it is crucial to understand what farmers mean when they talk about improving animal welfare. To chart farmers' perceptions, we conducted qualitative interviews and a questionnaire study using the theory of planned behaviour as a conceptual framework. We found that the farmers perceived the improvement of animal welfare as four specific, practical attitude objects (providing animals with a favourable environment; taking care of animal health; treating the animals humanely; and taking care of the farmer's own well-being) and two different but often overlapping general attitudinal dimensions (the instrumental and intrinsic evaluations of animal welfare). The farmers' intentions to improve animal welfare were best explained by their attitudes towards the specific welfare-improving actions. The concept of the improvement of animal welfare examined in this study outlines measures to improve animal welfare from the farmers' point of view and discusses their influence. Our study demonstrates that by adapting a valid conceptual framework and applying relevant qualitative and quantitative methods that support each other, we are able to elucidate the underlying meanings and values in farmers' views on improving animal welfare.

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Improving animal welfare: qualitative and quantitative methodology in the study of farmers' attitudes

This article takes a frame analytic approach to the popular peasant–entrepreneur typology and focuses on the much-studied topic of farmers' values. Peasantry is often thought to represent traditional or ‘indigenous’ style of farming, while entrepreneurship is associated with values injected and promoted by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). In this article, peasantry and entrepreneurship are approached as frames for farming, i.e., social constructions that can be used to make sense of farming. The aim is to study whether farmers themselves frame farming in line with the peasant ethos and whether one can detect the impact of the policy discourses in farmers' framings. The study utilises value survey data from Finland and concludes that even though Finnish farmers' framings do not straightforwardly reflect the peasant–entrepreneur typology, they are highly compatible with the multifunctionality policy discourse. The results call for further attention to the novel framings new peasantry and ecological entrepreneurship that are compatible with the multifunctionality discourse.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-9523.2012.00572.x

Kari Mikko Vesala

Papers

Developing the entrepreneurial skills of farmers: some myths explored

The split entrepreneurial identity of the farmer

Entrepreneurs and producers : identities of Finnish farmers in 2001 and 2006

Improving animal welfare: qualitative and quantitative methodology in the study of farmers' attitudes

Peasantry and Entrepreneurship As Frames for Farming: Reflections on Farmers' Values and Agricultural Policy Discourses