Showing papers in "International Review of Sociology in 2000"

Utilization of Social Networks for Immigrant Entrepreneurship: A Case Study of Korean Immigrants in the Atlanta Area

Abstract: This study investigates what foundations of resource mobilization exist for immigrants to establish an entrepreneurial environment, in the case of Korean immigrants in Atlanta. Data was collected from face-to-face interviews conducted in 1994 with 159 Korean entrepreneurs who owned businesses in the Atlanta Metropolitan area. The study indicated that class resources based on educational background were decisive and indispensablein establishing social networks, which profoundly helped the immigrants in pursuit of entrepreneurship. Contrary to conventional perception that family networks provide resources for immigrant businesses, family-connected migrants in Atlanta did not show an advantage over non-family connected migrants in starting businesses more quickly. It is recommended that the concept of ethnic resources (unpaid family labor, frugal attitudes, hard work, rotating credit associations) be seen as separate from social networks and family networks because these resources operate differently. (CBS)

Entrepreneurs and SMEs in Regional Economies: Policy Issues for Sustainable Development in a Globalizing Economy

Abstract: (2000). Entrepreneurs and SMEs in Regional Economies: Policy Issues for Sustainable Development in a Globalizing Economy. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 83-100.

Who are the Entrepreneurs and Where Do They Come From? Transition to Self-employment Before, Under and After Communism in Hungary

Abstract: (2000). Who are the Entrepreneurs and Where Do They Come From? Transition to Self-employment Before, Under and After Communism in Hungary. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 147-171.

Grounded Theory and the Biographical Approach: An Attempt at an Integrated Heuristic Strategy

Abstract: The methodological debate which began some years ago concerning the relationship between quantitative and qualitative research1 does not appear to be over yet.2 The attempt to draw distinctions between the so-called qualitative and quantitative methods still sees the most famous of Italian methodologists invariably taking up contrasting positions. Apart from the most radical stances that tend to eliminate any possibility of real discussion (Pera, 1991), it has to be said that the task of drawing a clear, deŽ nitive methodological distinction between qualitative and quantitative research is not only a difŽ cult one, but one perhaps bordering on the impossible.3 What I therefore propose to do here is to submit a number of ideas as necessary premises of my own position in the present essay. The Ž rst of these ideas is that, regardless of the possibility of formulating crystal-clear criteria when distinguishing between qualitative and quantitative analyses, we nevertheless need to accept what has been called the qualitative methods challenge. This means I am convinced that certain nonstandard research strategies4 must be given the chance to gain wider academic acceptance within the Ž eld of sociological research. In order to do so, I of course accept the need for re ection at the three levels of sociological knowledge (the epistemological, methodological and the technical),5 while avoiding the dominance of method viewed as a series of immobile, unchangeable and absolutely binding principles.6 What I mean is that control over, and a prompt, explicit report on, the rules of conduct and the procedures followed are an essential part of the researcher’s task, regardless of whether the adopted research method is largely quantitative or qualitative,7 but also that moving away from the traditional (and mainly quantitative) methods used in sociological research becomes increasingly important if we are to understand and explain those newly emerging social phenomena that render late modernity increasingly difŽ cult to label and standardize. What I would like to do in the present essay is to propose a qualitative research approach, in other words one that is strongly weighted towards the analysis and understanding of those emergent social phenomena whose causes and effects have yet to be fully grasped. More speciŽ cally, in my attempt to meet the challenge of qualitative method, my principal aim is to support the methodological efŽ cacy (and thus the heuristic propriety) of the synergetic, International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2000

Pathways Towards the Dual Breadwinner Model: The Role of the Swedish, German and the American States

Abstract: (2000). Pathways Towards the Dual Breadwinner Model: The Role of the Swedish, German and the American States. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 189-205.

Globalization and Self-organization: The Consequences of Decentralization for Industrial Organization

Abstract: (2000). Globalization and Self-organization: The Consequences of Decentralization for Industrial Organization. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 73-82.

Growing Self-employment in Western Europe: An Effect of Modernization?

Abstract: (2000). Growing Self-employment in Western Europe: An Effect of Modernization? International Review of Sociology: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 101-123.

Limits to Mass Production: Entrepreneurship and Industrial Organization in View of the Historical School of Schmoller and Sombart

Abstract: This paper deals with an argument against the proposed universal tendency of economic concentration and of continuously rising sizes of organizations. The argument was put forward by the German writers Gustav Schmoller (1838–1917) and, later, Werner Sombart (1863–1941) who were both leading representatives of the so-called younger historical school (see Mombert, 1927, pp. 374–523; Dorfman, 1955; Neumark, 1969; Schmölders, 1984; Koslowski, 1995). Schmoller and Sombart belonged to a group of people who practised a scientiŽ c concept which can be characterized as a form of early socioeconomic institutionalism. In this perspective the perception of socioeconomic phenomena was led by the awareness of their integration in a historical  ow of change and formation. Theoretical statements were made on the basis of empirical observations and were led through an inductive method of generalization. This paper attempts to highlight one example of argumentation as carried out by Schmoller and Sombart in order to demonstrate, Ž rstly, the accuracy of the early perception of socio-economic change and, secondly, to express how useful it may be to go back to some ‘hidden classics’. The thesis that there are limits to the continuous rise in the size of organizations is proposed as a counter to Marxist argumentation as well as in contrast to orthodox economics. Whoever thinks about the ‘new division of labour’, especially at the dawn of a new millennium, must inevitably ask themselves what criteria exist for the division ‘old’ and ‘new’ (see principally Wallerstein, 1993). Instead of grouping the complexities of the creation of modern economics under one term (e.g. in current practice under the labels of ‘Fordism’ or even ‘post-Fordism’), one has to acknowledge primarily that there are not only many different enterprises within the sectoral margins of an economy, all with their own speciŽ c production processes of goods and different performances, but also in the vertical margins of the size-structure of enterprises, which have to be taken into account in the empirical and theoretical calculation. The 21st century provides an excellent opportunity to re ect on the main economic and social developments of the last 100 years or so. By looking at the current discussions and conference topics, we can see that the question of the division of labour has again International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2000

Familialism, friendship and the small firm in the new Russia

Abstract: Entrepreneurship has been constrained in post-Soviet Russia by unsympathetic legislation and punitive taxation (Nelson and Kuzes, 1995; Aslund, 1997). In consequence the registered small business sector in Russia is very much smaller than its counterparts in either Eastern or Western Europe though a high proportion of the population is in some way reliant on entrepreneurial income.1 Although only 6% of registered workers are entrepreneurs, surveys indicate that one-third of households derive income from independent business activity (Rimashevskaya and Voitenkova, 1998, p. 152). As it is a sector ‘in which many people are giving up after two to three years’ hard work and tribulations’ (Medvedev, 1998, p. 59), far more will have been involved in running a small business, often with family members and/or friends. For many in Russia, the impact of marketization on personal relations has been experienced in the everyday travails of running a small business. People have tested the ethic of family duty, the bounds of friendship and the utility of the ‘economy of favours’ (Ledeneva, 1998) originating in Soviet society in business activity. These issues—securing of family obligation, trust and friendship—provide key thematic elements for exploring the cultural and moral embeddedness of a distinctive form of economic activity. The research here has explored the relationship between the affective and rational dichotomies of conventional social analysis with a view to explicating the cultural and moral dimensions of economic activity that have been seen as so signiŽ cant in the recent revival of economic sociology (Etzioni, 1988; Mingione, 1989; Holton, 1992). The data derive from 30 extended interviews with the family members of 12 small enterprises in the city of Novosibirsk, its science-city suburb, Academgorodok, and a satellite town, Berdsk, West Siberia, in the period November 1997 to June 1998. Each had at least two family members working for it.2 The sample includes a cross-spectrum of activities with enterprises with involvement in agriculture (1), commerce (1) manufacturing (3), retail/catering (4), professional services (5) and other services (1). Two enterprises are a relic of privatization (in Berdsk); both are now failing. The remainder, thus, are among the ‘genuinely new Ž rms [which] are quite rare in Russia’ (Huber and Worgotter, 1998, p. 86). All but two were Ž rst registered before 1993 (the exceptions were in 1993 and 1994). The sample falls into two groups: the Ž rst—three Ž rms, one not registered, another licensed as a housing advisor, in which the activity is supplementary to other sources of income, the registered employees are family members. In these the prime consideration is ensuring the future International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2000

Entrepreneurship, Markets, Self-employment: Introduction

Abstract: The approach of the 21st century provides an excellent opportunity to re ect on the main economic and social developments of previous decades. By looking at current discussions and conference topics, we can see that the question of the division of labour has again surfaced as an important one. New compositions in the structure of employment and the population of organizations have occurred which are raising questions for an adequate sociological interpretation. For the last two decades we have observed a revival in entrepreneurship and self-employment in public discourse and in sociological discussion. Following many years in which the political and scientiŽ c debate was focused on large and very large Ž rms, which were regarded as the guarantors and drivers of economic prosperity, of technical progress and of secure and growing employment, the tide began to turn, slowly but surely, at the beginning of the 1980s, with the result that increasing interest arose in self-employment and in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The transformation which self-employed entrepreneurship underwent in terms of public opinion, especially in more critical social and economic circles, can be described as a change from demons to demiurges, who in Greek mythology were regarded as innovative creators of worlds (see Bögenhold and Staber, 1994). Since then, we have been able to observe a multi-coloured political alliance in favour of self-employment, in which vocational independence is seen as having value in itself as well as being a political instrument. Its value as a political instrument lies in the role which it is supposed, or hoped, the self-employed and people who have recently become self-employed are playing or will play. At a time when unemployment was climbing to comparatively high levels, smaller economic units were increasingly seen as beacons of hope for economic and labour market policies. Because small Ž rms are for the most part run by self-employed people, and—vice versa—because the self-employed largely conduct their economic exploits in the Ž eld of small and medium-sized enterprises, the category of self-employed workers was consequently recognized as, and made to be, a target for political measures, since the self-employed were assumed to function as multipliers. This instrumental value, whereby the self-employed operate as the (personal) vectors of the economic functions attributed to small Ž rms, has for some International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2000

Women and public power: class does make a difference

Abstract: Diana Coole, in her critique of post-modernist feminism, asks: ‘Is class a difference that makes a difference?’ (Coole, 1996). Coole questions the neglect of class as a difference that divides women and signiŽ cantly structures their lives. This international survey of men and women in positions of public power in business and politics argues that class does make a difference to women’s access to power. The study was conducted in 27 industrialized countries, including west and east Europe, north America, Japan and Australasia.1 The question we are asking in this article is: does class background differentiate men and women in positions of public power, and if so how? We use several different dimensions of class to examine this question, drawing on the information in the questionnaires from the whole international sample. Our hypothesis is that women leaders come from higher class backgrounds than male leaders, and the evidence suggests that, in most of the dimensions of class examined, there is a statistically signiŽ cant relationship between gender and class in the direction proposed.

Réseaux et trajectoires d'étudiants africains

Abstract: Nous presentons dans cet article quelques resultats d'une recherche conduite aupres d'etudiants africains a l'Universite de Nice. La demarche adoptee dans cette recherche a ete monographique et inductive : elle vise a mettre en relief le parcours de ces etudiants comme un certain type de trajectoire migratoire dont l'issue se construit tout au long du sejour et dont le sens s'elabore pour l'individu a travers sa participation a des reseaux de communication specifiques que nous nous attachons a decrire.

Monographic Section: Three Faces in Russian Sociology: Surviving Intellectually as Sociologists in a Totalitarian Society - Introduction

Abstract: The reading of texts presenting facts and theoretical analyses is not the only way of acquiring knowledge and of expanding your horizon. You can also learn from experiencing and re ecting upon episodes of life and action, or from narratives about such episodes. This monograph makes extensive use of the narrative approach both in this introduction and in the interviews with three prominent Russian sociologists that follow hereafter. A narrative such as this unavoidably becomes biographical—not only with regard to those interviewed but also with respect to the interviewer. The World Congresses that are organized every forth year by the International Sociological Association (ISA) had never—before 1970—been situated within any of the countries of Eastern Europe which at that time were known as members of the Soviet Bloc. The Ž rst ISA World Congress to occur within the Soviet Bloc took place late in the summer of 1970 in Varna, Bulgaria. This was also my Ž rst visit to a country beyond the so-called Iron Curtain. Readers of sufŽ cient age from Western Europe will have no difŽ culty recalling the image of the Soviet Union prevailing in the Western media at that time— not only as one of the great powers saving Europe from Hitler but also as a repressive totalitarian nation of ruthless communism. Rather than reminiscing about these images of the past, I will right now emphasize what was to me the most signiŽ cant experience during my Ž rst visit to a country in Eastern Europe. It was the meeting with and getting to know individuals, a few single persons from a nation which otherwise had appeared to me as an impersonal, faceless and somewhat suspect collectivity. Andrei Zdravomyslov was such an individual, a face emerging out of faceless anonymity. At one of the Ž rst plenary sessions in one of the large assembly halls at the World Congress in Varna he presented a paper comparing the conceptual frameworks of Marxian historical materialism and Western structural functionalism. It was obvious that this paper was a result of serious learning and International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2000

Three Faces in Russian Sociology. Surviving intellectually as sociologists in a totalitarian society

Abstract: Three Faces in Russian Sociology. Surviving intellectually as sociologists in a totalitarian society

Enterprises and Entrepreneurs in the Private Sector in Chinese Transitional Society

Abstract: (2000). Enterprises and Entrepreneurs in the Private Sector in Chinese Transitional Society. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 173-182.

Allemands de souche en Europe de l'Est et leur immigration vers l'Allemagne

Abstract: État et nation n’ont jamais coïncidé dans l’histoire allemande. Autant le Reich créé par Bismarck que la République de Weimar ont exclu bon nombre d’Allemands et même d’importants territoires germanophones de l’époque. Les conséquences de la première et de la seconde guerre mondiale ont considérablement modiŽ é la relation entre l’état et la nation allemande. Le traité de paix de Versailles a contribué à accroître le nombre d’Allemands vivant à l’extérieur du pays. Le départ des Allemands des pays de l’est vers la Ž n de la seconde guerre mondiale ainsi que les expulsions et transferts de 1945 ont évité une considérable disparité entre l’état et la nation. Au total, environ douze millions d’Allemands ont été expulsés de leurs régions entre 1945 et 1949. Néanmoins, les expulsions ou départs involontaires n’ont pas touché tous les Allemands de souche vivant à l’est. Ceci explique l’immigration des Allemands de souche depuis 1950.

On the Changing Nature of Entrepreneurship

Abstract: This essay examines how the entrepreneurial role has changed over time in the context of an evolving American economy since the Civil War. Because entrepreneurs do what the market has failed to do by itself, entrepreneurs and the market are complementary to each other. It is, therefore, not surprising that as the market evolved over time, the role played by the entrepreneur also changed in a predictable fashion. As the entrepreneur’s role evolved, the characteristics of the firm and the economy also changed as a consequence. The resulting firm becomes a coalition of entrepreneurs, and decision making in the firm is decentralized. Decentralization in decision making, in turn, leads to greater responsiveness to the consumer and more extensive utilization of the market. In short, the resurgence of the entrepreneur in recent years has greatly enhanced the market performance. Introduction Entrepreneurs in an uncertain market environment perform creative acts in the business sphere just as artists, essayists, and scientists do in their respective fields. Specifically, the presence of uncertainty causes the market to be incomplete and the incomplete market, in turn, destroys the market's ability to coordinate production. Entrepreneurs rise to organize production by assuming a part of the allocative role which, according to the traditional theory, is reserved exclusively

Télévision transnationale, mondialisation et la formation de l'identité culturelle: L'exemple de la République Dominicaine

Abstract: (2000). Television transnationale, mondialisation et la formation de l'identite culturelle: L'exemple de la Republique Dominicaine. International Review of Sociology: Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 301-316.

Interview with Tatiana Zaslavskaya

Abstract: Ulf: Tatiana—what kind of experiences during your younger years motivated you to take up studies of Social Science disciplines, philosophy or whatever you studied at that time when you Ž rst entered the world of learning. By experiences I mean observations that you made in your everyday life, or episodes or current events that happened in your youth, or experiences from reading, or perhaps some personality that had an impact on you . . .

International Migrations and the Issue of Multiculturalism - Introduction

Abstract: International migrations have contributed in the last decades to signiŽ cant changes in the contemporary ethnic composition of societies. The numbers of persons involved are much larger than in previous migration waves. De facto, these movements of populations meant the creation of multicultural societies, even if the states concerned did not apply multiculturalism as a policy strategy, known in countries such as Australia and Canada.2 In the case studies presented in this special issue of the International Review of Sociology, the authors show multicultural situations in different countries, such as Germany, France and the USA. International migrations imply the admission in individual states of great numbers of individuals belonging to different ethnic groups. In Germany, the events related to the breakdown of the former Soviet Union led to an unprecedented  ow of Aussiedler who received and continue to receive the German nationality. In France, former colonial states such as some Arab States and French Black Africa sent migrants who—as members of an international social system—occupy low positions in relation to international standards, and who try to better their situation. In France, the assimilative model is dominant in integration policy, whereas in countries such as Britain minority politics in the ideological-normative sphere are favoured. This has important repercussions on immigrant populations. Two of the articles of this issue present new research material about this topic. Philippe Poutignat and Jocelyne Streiff-Fénart demonstrate the social links of African students within and outside France. Ulrike Schuerkens shows the possibilities of social integration which are characteristic for urban Africans who migrated to France since the beginning of the 1980s. While research about the different immigration systems was abundant in the last decade,3 we know much less about migrations conditioned by the international stratiŽ cation of societies and adjustments of immigrants in receiving countries. Our case studies show some recent responses to such challenges. The article from Rainer Münz and Rainer Ohliger presents the particular situation of Aussiedler in Germany who, as privileged foreigners, receive the German nationality, but are none the less exposed to discriminations well known in the study of international migrations. Jin-Kyung Yoo’s article gives insights into the functioning of ethnic entrepreneurship in the Atlanta region in the USA and shows aspects of the ‘classic’ immigration system of the North American type. International Review of Sociology—Revue Internationale de Sociologie, Vol. 10, No. 3, 2000