Sociology of Entrepreneurship

The purpose of this article is to assess the mentoring impact in an experiential learning entrepreneurship program. We did three-year participant observation in the major business school incubator of the Paris area with the aim to identify the interpersonal communicational strategies that mentors, which are confirmed entrepreneurs, use in order to influence nascent entrepreneurs' attitudes and behaviors in dyadic interaction. These communicational strategies are categorized as persuasion, engagement, criticism, and provocation. An additional two-year field research allowed us to assess the impact of these communicational strategies at the individual (commitment, compliance, resistance) and the enterprise levels (business launching and fund-raising).

Peut-on parler d'une sociologie de l'entrepreneuriat ? Quelle est-elle et comment la pratiquer ? Sur la base de ces questions essentielles, l'auteur propose un regard scientifi que en présentant les fondements épistémologiques de la sociologie de l'entrepreneuriat et en démontrant les contingences sociales de cette jeune discipline à partir du cas africain. Ce livre, fruit de plusieurs années d'interrogations, de doutes et de remises en question présente un projet intellectuel original et fécond : relier le phénomène entrepreneurial à son cadre social et étudier les processus entrepreneuriaux à travers le système d'interaction social dans lequel ils sont construits. Au-delà de l'ambition noble des critères universels d'appréciation du dynamisme du phénomène entrepreneurial, la sociologie de l'entrepreneuriat propose un regard plus ouvert aux différences ; plus sensible aux particularités ; plus attentif aux dynamiques qui travaillent chaque société et qui impulsent au quotidien des initiatives toujours plus originales de création et de gestion de l'organisation. Docteur (Ph.D.) en sociologie économique et enseignant au département de sociologie de l'université de Yaoundé 1 (Cameroun), Henri Tedongmo Teko est membre de l'Association internationale des sociologues de langues française (AISLF) et de l'équipe de recherche « Centre d'études et de recherches africaines en management et en entrepreneuriat » (CÉRAME). Il est également écrivain poète et coordonnateur scientifique de l'Observatoire national de l'éthique dans les industries du sport et de la culture. L'entrepreneuriat, les pratiques culturelles et les dynamiques théologiques en contexte africain constituent ses principaux centres d'intérêt.

RÉSUME
Mueller (2004) démontre que les intentions entrepreneuriales des femmes sont moindres que celles des hommes surtout dans les pays en voie de développement. Qu’en est-il dans un pays en économie de transition comme l’Égypte? Tout en relançant le questionnement de Mueller (2004), cette étude articule une comparaison sexuée et une approche genrée pour mieux comprendre le rôle des rapports hommes/femmes dans la formation de l’intention entrepreneuriale féminine dans une culture donnée. Grâce à une recherche quantitative menée en 2010 auprès de 320 étudiants égyptiens francophones au Caire, les auteurs ont pu démontrer que les étudiantes égyptiennes ont fortement le désir d’entreprendre et de concrétiser assez rapidement leur projet, qu’elles sont assez confiantes dans leurs compétences à créer et conscientes des obstacles qu’elles rencontreront. L’étude révèle également certaines ambivalences des projets entrepreneuriaux des jeunes égyptiennes liées aux rapports de genre. Notre étude complète ainsi les conclusions de Mueller (2004) et Langowitz et Minniti (2007). Nous pouvons arguer du fait que dans un pays en économie de transition, le déséquilibre des motivations entrepreneuriales des femmes et des hommes est limité.

Published as part of "Istanbul's Cultural Inventory Project," book series which was commissioned and funded by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA), Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture Agency and French Institute of Anatolian Studies (IFEA, Istanbul), this edited volume brings together 20 original academic articles chapters ranging from those analyzing the history of entertainment and leisure in Istanbul in terms of continuties and break among the Byzantine, Ottoman and Republican forms, Ottoman gender-crossing dancers' and Roma musicians' important contributions, Republican entertainment and the elite forms since 1980s, dance initiatives, entertainment establishments such as "gazinos," Rock, Jazz, and "Ballad" Bars (Türkü Bar) and Electronic Dance Clubs, as well as some select neighborhoods (Cihangir,  Asmalımescit and Galata). Other articles deal with particular groups of consumers ("White Turks", Islamic conservatives and others) as well as the music media, festivals and the construction of Istanbul as a neo-liberal and "cool" global city.
Chapters by:
Volkan Aytar, Kübra Parmaksızoğlu, Ş. Şehvar Beşiroğlu, Murat Meriç, Münir N. Beken, Zeynep Günsur Yüceil, Orhan Tekelioğlu, Merve Erol, Özgür Akgül, Nihal Bengisu Karaca, Nuray Mert, Haydar Ergülen, Ayça İnce, Ahmet Uhri, Ceren Mert, Eray Aytimur and Derya Özkan
(in Turkish, currently in the market for English-language translation)

Many people will agree on the idea that entrepreneurship is one of the most important business concepts in recent days. In addition, it is said that we are experiencing the fourth industrial revolution (or " Industry 4.0). Information and communication technologies are one of the key elements of this period. Therefore, some information about these two components, " entrepreneurship " and " information and communication technologies " , are given and the possible and strong relationships between them are discussed in this study.

Revue Terrains et Travaux

Scandales financiers, catastrophes sanitaires, désastres écologiques... beaucoup de situations ont donné lieu, ces dernières années, à la mise en cause d'entreprises, de leurs patrons et/ou de certains de leurs employés. L'affaire Kerviel, la crise du Médiator ou encore le scandale des prothèses PIP comptent ainsi parmi les cas les plus médiatiques de mises en accusation récentes d’entreprises. Par ailleurs, sans être portées sur la place publique, bien d’autres pratiques engendrent régulièrement des litiges plus locaux, à l’échelle d’un secteur industriel, d’une société, ou même d’un service (optimisation fiscale, corruption, travail « en perruque »…).

Ce numéro de Terrains & Travaux entend aborder la « déviance d’entreprise » en rendant compte de la pluralité des formes de dénonciation des pratiques des entreprises en tant que personnes morales, comme des pratiques en entreprise (maquillage des comptes, délits d’initiés, arrangements avec les autorités, larcins, dissimulation de fautes professionnelles etc.). Il vise ainsi à rassembler des contributions mettant en lumière les fondements, les formes et les effets de la mise en cause des entreprises en tant qu’institutions économiques et/ou des individus qui constituent les maillons de ces organisations.

En préférant le terme « déviance » à celui de « délinquance », nous souhaitons ouvrir cet appel à des articles qui ne porteront pas seulement sur des actes dénoncés dans le cadre d’une procédure judiciaire, mais aussi sur des comportements stigmatisés à l’aune de normes morales n’ayant pas (encore) de traduction juridique. Les contributions pourront dans ce cadre distinguer les dommages proprement économiques de ceux qui ne le sont pas, et repérer l’importance des arguments économiques dans les discours dénonciateurs. En effet, à la différence des scandales financiers, les crises sanitaires ou environnementales portent certes sur des dommages qui ne sont pas (ou pas principalement) d’ordre économique, mais la mise en cause des entreprises repose néanmoins souvent sur la dénonciation des risques qu’elles ont pris pour satisfaire des velléités de profits. En rassemblant des articles s’appuyant sur de solides approches empiriques (travaux ethnographiques, historiques…) l’ambition de ce numéro sera, à cet égard, de dessiner les contours et les spécificités de la « déviance économique » et de repérer d’éventuelles évolutions temporelles dans ses manifestations.

Depuis la description des pratiques jugées déviantes jusqu’à l'examen des initiatives de régulation, en passant par l'étude des modalités d'action des « entrepreneurs de la dénonciation » et les référentiels normatifs qu’ils mobilisent pour justifier la critique, les contributions pourront donc aborder la thématique de la déviance d’entreprise sous des angles très variés. Ouvert à des travaux portant sur des entreprises de toutes tailles (grandes entreprises – y compris multinationales – PME ou TPE), ce numéro pourra rassembler des articles s’inscrivant, à titre indicatif et non exhaustif, dans les trois axes suivants :

1) La déviance en action : acteurs, motifs et appuis des pratiques jugées déviantes ;
2) La déviance dénoncée : travail de mise en cause des comportements déviants, et litiges (affaires, scandales...) consécutifs ;
3) Les intermédiaires de la déviance : acteurs et instruments venant soutenir ou au contraire entraver les comportements jugés déviants (consultants, contrôleurs...).

Les articles, de 40 000 signes maximum (espaces et notes compris), devront parvenir sous forme électronique aux coordinatrices du numéro avant le 7 septembre 2012 aux adresses suivantes :

Pauline Barraud de Lagerie : p.barraud@cso.cnrs.fr
Marie Trespeuch : marie.trespeuch@orange.com

La revue accueille, par ailleurs, des notes critiques sur le thème, ainsi que des articles hors dossier.

Objectives. Previous studies on agritourism entrepreneurship have identified a variety of economic and non-economic motivations driving farm operators to start the agritourism activity. Nonetheless, local heritage preservation and enhancement have been completely overlooked. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether " heritage preservation and enhancement " (in its three facets related to: tangible rural heritage; agrifood heritage; rural way of life heritage) is a specific non-economic motivation for agritourism entrepreneurship. Methodology. A survey on a sample of 226 Italian agritourism operators was conducted in March 2015. Data were first analysed through a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and then through the importance-performance analysis (IPA). Findings. The results show that there are 5 different groups of motivations to start the agritourism business, namely: i) economic motivations; ii) personal and family-related motivations; iii) tangible rural heritage preservation and enhancement; iv) agrifood heritage preservation and enhancement; v) rural way of life heritage preservation and enhancement. Hence " heritage preservation and enhancement " (in its three facets) has a pivotal role and it is more important than economic motivations. Similarly operators are more satisfied for having contributed to heritage preservation than for having obtained economic benefits from the agritourism activity. Research limits. Caution should be paid before extending these results to countries other than Italy (where, for example, agrifood heritage has a strong and peculiar tradition and connection with the territory). Practical implications. Operators are well aware of their contribution to the preservation and enhancement of local heritage but also perceive that tourists are not always able to appreciate the value of this contribution and have misconceptions about the essence of agritourism. This may be the result also of the use of the label " agritourism " to indicate offerings (such as agri-spas or basic accommodation services) which do not primarily focus on the link with local heritage. Therefore, it is important that " authentic agritourism " operators that focus on heritage (in its three facets) are able to share the efforts to make potential guests aware about the uniqueness of their offering, emphasizing the strong link with the local heritage. Originality of the study. This is the first study in the literature stream about agritourism entrepreneurship to demonstrate that locale heritage preservation and enhancement is a distinct, key motivation for agritourism operators.

Quels rapports y a-t-il entre l’idéal type des sociologues et la fiction des cinéastes ? Cette question n’a été abordée ni par la recherche sociologique, ni par le monde cinématographique. Cet article vise précisément à interroger la relation entre idéal-type sociologique et fiction filmique à partir de l’étude du film de Pavel Lounguine (PL) sorti en 2002 sous le titre « Oligarkh », traduit à sa sortie en France par l’expression "Un nouveau Russe".

[PL poniżej] On January 1, 2016, the Law of 15 May 2015 new Restructuring Law entered into force in Poland, introducing a number of changes in bankruptcy law. The most important innovation enabled Polish entrepreneurs to take advantage of the benefits of the prepackaged bankruptcy (prepack). In the first part of the report Bartosz Pilitowski presents statistics of restructuring and bankruptcy proceedings in Poland as well as the results of analysis of all bankruptcy proceedings involving new institutions enabled by Restructuring Law initiated in the first three years under the new law, esp. prepackaged bankruptcy. Second part of the report consists articles written by experienced bankruptcy law practitioners and highlighting possibilities (by Marcin Kubiczek), problems (by Magdalena Pyzik-Waląg) and forthcoming changes (by Karol Tatara) of new Polish Bankruptcy Law and Restructuring Law .

[PL] Raport ten jest podsumowaniem 3 lat badań prowadzonych przez Fundację Court Watch Polska, poświęconych praktyce stosowania przygotowanej likwidacji (zwanej z ang. pre-pack), układu częściowego oraz układu w upadłości. Raport podzielony jest na dwie części. W pierwszej części raportu zaprezentowane są analizy danych empirycznych. Najpierw o obciążeniu sądów upadłościowych, a następnie o wykorzystaniu nowych instytucji prawa restrukturyzacyjnego i upadłościowego. W drugiej części raportu znajdują się refleksje doświadczonych praktyków prawa restrukturyzacyjnego i upadłościowego. Szczególną uwagę poświęcają oni ostatniej nowelizacji prawa upadłościowego, która nie tylko wprowadza szereg zmian do regulacji instytucji przygotowanej likwidacji, ale również upadłości konsumenckiej, dając szansę na poprawę sprawności postępowań upadłościowych firm.

The purpose of this article is to assess the mentoring impact in an experiential learning entrepreneurship program. We did three-year participant observation in the major business school incubator of the Paris area with the aim to identify the interpersonal communicational strategies that mentors, which are confirmed entrepreneurs, use in order to influence nascent entrepreneurs' attitudes and behaviors in dyadic interaction. These communicational strategies are categorized as persuasion, engagement, criticism, and provocation. An additional two-year field research allowed us to assess the impact of these communicational strategies at the individual (commitment, compliance, resistance) and the enterprise levels (business launching and fund-raising).

The network approach plays an important role in the sociological study of enterprises and of the process of becoming an entrepreneur. In our analysis we examine the role of social relations in the setup process of enterprises by the aid of a questionnaire survey of 3,021 respondents representative of the adult population of Transylvanian small towns, and the impact of networks on business success based on the results of a questionnaire survey of 1,005 companies representative of Transylvanian small and medium-sized enterprises. The conclusion of our study is that social network as a resource is much more important during the setting up of an enterprise, whereas in the case of already established, operating enterprises its contribution to entrepreneurial success is less significant.

The article discusses the experiences of self-employment among immigrants from Turkey living in Finland. The immigrants are mainly active in the restaurant and fast food sector in Finland, primarily in small kebap and pizza businesses. The article argues that both economic and social aspects explain the experiences of self-employment. Despite economic hardship, the freedom and social status connected to entrepreneurship is highly valued. Self-employment provides a positive self-understanding and a good social status, which the immigrants from Turkey find it difficult to achieve by any other means in Finnish society.

The Faculty of Business, Babes-Bolyai University, Romania,
        in partnership with
NWU School of Business & Governance, North West University, South Africa;
The Centre for Strategic & International Entrepreneurship, Cracow University of Economics, Poland; and
The Faculty of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, Siauliai University, Lithuania

Are pleased to announce:
The International Conference SMALL AND MEDIUM SIZED ENTERPRISES IN A GLOBALIZED WORLD, 8th Edition

September 28th-30th, 2017, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Conference Objectives:

The main objective of the present conference is to encourage researches concerning SMEs in a globalized world through networking and collaboration between academics and practitioners.

The conference also aims to serve as a forum between entrepreneurs, managers, academics and researchers who are invited to exchange information, knowledge and experience in the broad filed of SMEs matters.


Conference Language: English.



Conference Main Topics:

 opportunities and challenges that SMEs face in globalization
 development strategies for SMEs in the context of globalization;
 local, regional and global issues for SMEs;
 microfinance, angel finance, venture capital and the SMEs;
 taxation and accounting matters for SMEs;
 entrepreneurship;
 business opportunities in IT&C;
 knowledge and innovation;
 entrepreneurship and business statistics;
 marketing policies;
 HRM policies.



All the papers not investigating the above listed topics, thus discussing other challenging issues related to the general topic of the conference will be considered as well.

There will be organized a special panel for undergraduate, master and PhD
student papers.

A panel session may be organized by a group of four – five people who give their regular presentations on a given subject (at their choice). After acceptance, the promoter will be responsible for the session and will chair it. In order to organize the Special Session, please send by March 31st 2017 the following information: title of the session; a paragraph describing the content of the session; name, surname and affiliation of the session chair/co-chairs and email address.

For more details, please see: http://tbs.ubbcluj.ro/conference17/

Organizing committee contacts:
Prof.dr. Cornelia Pop: cornelia.pop@tbs.ubbcluj.ro
Assoc.prof.dr. Oana Gica: oana.gica@tbs.ubbcluj.ro
Lecturer dr. Cristina Balint: cristina.balint@tbs.ubbcluj.ro
Lecturer dr. Monica Maria Coros: monica.coros@tb.ubbcluj.ro

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a manifestation of change and is regarded as vital sources of jobs, business dynamism and innovation. However, entrepreneurship is a social activity which occurs in time and space (not just in a geographical sense). Entrepreneurship is seen as a natural, organic process that follows the manifestation of change. There is of course an assumption that this change will occur naturally but what happens if as is increasingly the norm a process of planned change interrupts the natural order of progression. In this observational study, we examine the influence of socio-cultural factors on the evolution of community based entrepreneurial activity in an urban
village setting. Using the social metrics of home, habitus and habituation this study examines how community based entrepreneurial activity develops when there is a rupture in the natural societal order caused by the building of a mono-cultural middle class enclave. One cannot get any closer to the social in entrepreneurship than to study entrepreneurial activity in one’s home environment. Studying entrepreneurial activity in a setting where the social context has been fixed permits us to investigate the embededdness of the entrepreneurial process in a naturally occurring environment
because the planned environment allows us to comment upon a social experiment in progress. Preliminary findings indicate that when the natural order is interrupted entrepreneurial activity becomes disjointed and finds new avenues of emergence as community based entrepreneurial activity in which business is facilitated by social networking and entrepreneurial identity is socially constructed through play.

Keywords

Entrepreneurship, Economic sociology, Economic geography, Social Entrepreneurship, Societal Entrepreneurship, Social Networking.

The importance of the makers’ projects at the universities has significantly increases because they open new dimension in innovation and technological development. By involving in different makers’ projects the university students as well as the researchers and academics have participated in actively a wide variety of information, which accelerate them in creativity, innovation, patenting, and licensing.

In this study, the effects of makers’ projects on accelerating creativity, innovation, patenting, and licensing were critically studied. Furthermore, how empathy had been affected the participants in creating innovative products, services, and processes by involving actively in learning process. Since in the makers’ projects informal and non-formal learning had been much more effective than formal learning, the participants’ creativity and collaboration had markedly increased. In that way, the patenting and licensing oriented innovation had deeply and intensively improved comparing to other ecosystems, particularly those, which were related to formal learning in which individual competitions were extremely high.

In order to analyze the effects of the makers’ projects on accelerating creativity, innovation, patenting and licensing, the phenomenological interpretive analysis is used to investigate this new interactive ecosystem. Mainly the graduate level students (43), the experienced researchers (12) and academics (4) had attended from two state and three private universities in order to the study their behaviors and attitudes while taking into account their perception regarding to the effects of the makers’ projects environment. By using the phenomenological analysis, twenty-six research questions were answered in the semi-structured interactive interviews by the target participants, who were from engineering departments, medical school, and basic sciences. The collected data were analyzed in data analysis software-program NVivo 10.

As a result, the data showed clearly that most of the participants (81%), who were played important roles in makers’ projects, had significantly better results in creativity, innovation and technology oriented projects. Furthermore, most of the makers’ project had developed better cooperative and collaborative ecosystems for most of the participants (97%) who created easily new products and services which had the potential of patenting and licensing. More importantly, the results had clearly showed that, those who were more involved in the makers’ projects in a team they had much more empathy in understanding the needs of the industries and those who need help. As most of the participants (93%) agreed that the makers’ projects had significantly accelerate open innovation since informal and non-formal learning develops new values, particularly transparency, trustworthiness, ethics, empathy, self control team capabilities, responsibilities, accountability, and resiliency. Additionally, since they had realized the needs of the market and final users, their divergent thinking opened new dimensions in the makers’ projects in which most of the outcomes had seen as licensing patents. In conclusion, the makers’ projects helped the participants to change their behaviors and attitudes of the participants’ teamwork capacity in redesigning and testing innovative products and services due to the fact that they gained empathy and resiliency as new values.

Not a long time that entrepreneurship training has found its place in Iran. Hence, not
many researches have been performed on efficiency and damages facing entrepreneurship
training. Present study tries to review damages facing entrepreneurship training from
viewpoint of entrepreneurship professors and teachers. Semi-structured interviews have
been used to collect data, and content analysis has been used to analyze data. The results
indicate that following factors are the most important factors which affect entrepreneurship
training in Iran: Lack of heart trust in necessity and importance of entrepreneurship in
comprehensive development, lack of trained professors, and lack of experience of Iranian
entrepreneurs.

The article describes the type and form of entreprising that characterised Soviet rural inhabitants and proposes that the definition of entrepreneurship in common and academic use contrasts the Soviet and neoliberal, post-Soviet circumstances. As a result, significant changes to organise the society according to neoliberal techniques become hidden. Further, the article demonstrates that the rural regions in Estonia do not offer a classic example of dispossession where people lose their means of production by which they become subjugated to the capitalist oppression. Instead, some of the "dispossessed" may well have acquired land and means of production during post-socialism. However, this may not necessarily empower people. Ownership does not convert directly into subsistence and stability. Yet, it does generate inequalities in access and social value. Estonian example allows unraveling how dispossession is propelled in neoliberal contexts. Inequalities, coupled with rolled back, yet nationalistically supported state, the ideal of entrepreneurial self-sufficiency and the distrust of social solidarity have triggered a remarkable fragmentation of social fabric. The article proposes that it is the post-soviet social dispossession in the form of disintegration and separation from one's fellows that has made entrepreneurial opportunities no more than objects of desire and disappointment. The latter triggers further withdrawal from the social networks, as blame for failure is laid upon non-entrepreneurial selves, rather than take the form of critique of the system that has led to such dispossession.