Entrepreneurial Class Research Articles

Listening to Rosita: The Business of Tejana Music and Culture, 1930-1955. By Mary Ann Villarreal

Listening to Rosita: The Business of Tejana Music and Culture, 1930-1955. Race and Culture in the American West Series. By Mary Ann Villarreal. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2015. xxxvi + 177 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.) L istening to Rosita: The Business of Tejana Music and Culture, 1930-1955 examines a Texas Mexican entrepreneurial class in what author Mary Ann Villareal calls the Texas Triangle, that geography circumscribed by Corpus Christi, Houston and San Antonio. The businesses featured here, rural or urban, addressed the need for Spanish-Language spaces of debate or leisure between the Great Depression and the aftermath of World War II. This volume is thus a cartographic rendering and recovery of enterprises like Tivoli’s Pecan Lounge, business and social spaces typically overlooked due to their … lorena.alvarado{at}rice.edu

Ретроспективний погляд на роль протекціонізму у розвитку підприємницького класу

Ретроспективний погляд на роль протекціонізму у розвитку підприємницького класу

Preparing for North Korea's Collapse: Key Stabilization Tasks

ABSTRACT: North Korea's hereditary rulers have been under a watch for decades, with many pundits regularly predicting the demise of the Family Recent scenarios are predicated on the sudden death of Kim Jong-un, the 32-year-old Supreme Leader, and an ensuing succession struggle ranging from an internal-faction winner-takes-all fight to a more chaotic transition where factions clash with assistance from outside powers. Offering China a ballistic missile defense ban on the peninsula might persuade the Chinese to acquiesce to eventual Korean unification and denuclearization. ********** North Korea's hereditary rulers have been under a watch for almost 30 years, with pundits regularly predicting the demise of the Kim Family Regime. At present, Kim Jong-un, the 32-year-old Supreme Leader (so far without an heir apparent) appears to be effectively consolidating his power through a combination of brutal acts, tentative economic reforms, and beneficent giveaways. He executed his uncle, National Defense Commission Vice Chairman Jang Sungtaek, and 70 other senior officials and generals since assuming power in December 2011. (1) Concomitantly, Kim opened glitzy amusement parks (including a water park, a dolphinarium, and a ski resort) for use by the rising, increasingly affluent entrepreneurial class mainly located in Pyonghattan and other privileged enclaves of Pyongyang. These emerging Donju (masters of money) are relatively well-off, a result of leveraging government ties, Chinese connections, and tacit market-based reforms introduced over the last 15 years that permit them to earn private incomes primarily in trade and agriculture. (2) Internal Collapse Despite Kim's carefully calibrated moves to cement his rule, the of his regime remains possible, plausible, and predictable due to its reliance on a single point of potential failure, namely, the Kim bloodline. Without another male Kim in the wings, Kim's sudden assassination or death is likely to precipitate a succession struggle ranging from an internal-faction winner-takes-all fight to a more chaotic, uncertain transition where factions clash over time with help from major outside powers. North Korea's remains a question of if, not when, chiefly because Kim seems to be in good health despite a persistent weight problem. In addition, roughly one-third of North Koreans appear to be bolstering his regime, mainly in return for food security and other privileges. One-tenth of North Koreans have officially registered cell phones, and another tenth may have unregistered ones. (3) The rest of society constitutes a silent, hard-to-assess majority, increasingly exposed to foreign criticism of its leader, but voicing no opposition as a result of their isolation, deprivation, powerlessness, or imprisonment. The imprisonment of dissidents applies not only to offenders, but often to their extended families--with up to 120,000 currently interned in hard-labor camps. (4) On balance, the Kim Family Regime appears to be ruthless in protecting its survival as the most prominent authoritarian dynasty in the world, except for Cuba's single-generation Castro leadership. Recent scenarios conjure two potentially interrelated events: first, the sudden death or assassination of Kim Jong-un, and second, the emergence of alternative power centers within the secretive Kim Family clan itself and among key security organizations. These power elites, failing to accommodate each other in North Korea's highly authoritarian system, could clash and break up the brittle, centralized regime. Given this worst-case scenario, the internal collapse school anticipates a new territorial partition if groups align strongly along diverging Chinese and South Korean/Western interests. (5) The formal demarcation between North and South Korea might then be redrawn north of the Demilitarized Zone, where it has existed since 1953. …

Two decades of re-aligning mundane entrepreneurship in Cuba

We examine how small entrepreneurs perceive their changing internal and external environments in Cuba, a country with a highly regulated yet emerging entrepreneurial class. We build on the concept of everyday exchange or mundane entrepreneurship, originally developed as a lens to understand non-state actions in the former USSR, and apply it to contemporary Cuba in the post-Soviet era. Our socially situated case of entrepreneurship in Cuba identifies how entrepreneurial behavior is sustained outside the contexts of the market. The result is a realignment in which contemporary entrepreneurship on the island shares important similarities with the Soviet blat system, while it also exhibits attributes that are unique to the Cuban case.

The culture of entrepreneurship

We study the cultural process through which a society inculcates an entrepreneurial spirit. People work for a guaranteed wage or operate a firm whose risky return depends on business expertise. The latter is culturally acquired, within the family or outside, and people may choose an occupation different from the one they were socialized into. A cultural bias towards safer occupations from colonial and post-colonial policies leads to stagnation where entrepreneurs do not upgrade technology because of their proficiency with existing methods. An aggregate productivity shock can tip this economy towards growth led by established businesses. A human capital shock where existing business expertise is less useful is more disruptive; growth occurs through the emergence of a new class of entrepreneurs. We conclude that culture is not destiny: it adapts even when some cultural traits do not.

Race and Ethnicity in Food Systems Work

Race and Ethnicity in Food Systems Work

Locating China’s Middle Classes: social intermediaries and the Party-state

The middle class has emerged as a political phenomenon in China since 2002 through a state-sponsored discourse that sees it as a universal and universalising class. Although the evidence from other countries suggests that the growth of middle classes leads to regime change, this seems to be an unlikely outcome for China. In the first place, China’s middle class discourse has uncertain sociological foundations. Secondly, where the middle classes are identifiable they still probably constitute no more than 12% of the population. Thirdly, China’s middle classes have a very close relationship to the Party-state. Most of the professional and managerial middle classes are part of, or closely associated with, the Party-state; and the entrepreneurial middle class has either emerged from within the Party-state or has been incorporated into it.

Questões avançadas de design: uma abordagem estratégica e investigativa para projetos sem mercado

The economic crisis that has hit countries in the west in recent years has generated a decline in the presence and the strength of the entrepreneurial class and also of its traditional role of “customer” of the design sector. Design has recently responded to this new situation by generating new working methods. Politecnico di Torino has evolved its classic demanding approach to design and brought it up to date by incorporating “explorative” capacities into the training of its students, providing them with the necessary skills to cope with an absence of market, proposing the designer as a key fi gure capable of exploring existing situations and off ering new solutions. The aim of this paper is to show how, in the absence of market, the strategies that Exploring Design can implement generate system-product, process, service design projects that are always original and innovative, capable of leading quite easily to new methods, business ideas and spheres of activity in which customers can become involved later on. Keywords: Advanced design, Exploring Design, Design education, Design methodology.

Neoliberalism’s Children: India’s Economy, Wageless Life, and Organized Crime in The Moor’s Last Sigh

As a comment on India after the publication of Midnight’s Children , Salman Rushdie’s 1995 novel The Moor’s Last Sigh offers a broad-based critique of modern India within the context of economic policy shifts that followed the country’s independence from British rule in 1947. The gradual implementation of neoliberal economic policies in the 1980s and 1990s accompanied India’s emergence as a major player in the global capitalist economy but also led to drastic increases in income inequality, unemployment, and the proliferation of a vast informal sector of exploitable human capital. Rushdie’s novel identifies India’s entrepreneurial and capitalist classes, specifically in Mumbai/Bombay, as complicit in the exacerbation of the class disparity that has led, in many cases, to increased cultural tensions between Hindus and Muslims as well as the growing ubiquity of government corruption and organized crime. The novel offers additional insight into the exploitative logic of Hindu nationalist politics through its parodic depiction of the Shiv Sena party, which derives much of its political clout through its patriarchal, mafia-esque relationship with urban slum dwellers. The Moor’s Last Sigh delineates new and complex forms of oppression and exploitation in postcolonial India that often occur simultaneously along class and cultural lines.

An Integrated Approach to Evaluating the Efficiency of Performance and Development of Regional Food Complex

Important issues of a food complex remain an increase of efficiency and competitiveness in both domestic and foreign markets. The necessity to identify strategic areas of agro policy that provides efficient development of food complex as the basis for food security of the population according to rational nutritional standards by improving physical and economic availability of foodstuff of different social groups, requires the development of appropriate methodological and applied bases for performance and development of food complex. The article focuses on the issue of the possibility of an integrated approach application to evaluating the performance efficiency and development of regional food complex on the basis of the research of the main methodological approaches to this evaluation, taking into account their advantages. Food sector in modern development faced with different challenges and threats represents a strategically important research object both at national and regional levels because it forms a subsistence support of the population. Thus, the correct approach to the evaluation of the regional food complex can substantially accelerate the development of quality of food complex with an emphasis on its timely transformation taking into account the relevance of the integration process. The basic tasks for the evaluation of food complex efficiency have been defined. Firstly, the task of a tactic level is to effectively perform food supply function in the agricultural sector (food security provision). Secondly, strategic task is the social and economic transformation (restructuring, modernization) of the agricultural sector the leading element of which should be the creation of a new production, market and social infrastructure of agricultural and rural areas, a new entrepreneurial class capable of integration into innovation and investment development in market conditions. Therefore the application of a task-oriented approach as a means to solve the formulated tasks has been investigated. Moreover, the expedience of the research for identifying the effective instruments of state control and regulation (primarily softwarebased) through the prism of motivation in food markets of all regions, all agents of agricultural markets. The basic criteria and indicators of a complex evaluation of efficiency and food complex development have been stated.

‘Interlocked’ business groups and the state in Chile (1970–2010)

In this article we examine the relationship among business groups (BGs) in Chile in the long run, focusing on the relations between the state, viewed as a BG, and privately-owned BGs from 1970 to 2010. Our analysis proceeds within the methodological perspective of interlocking directorates (IDs) analysis. Working with a unique database of the boards of firms affiliated to BGs, we consider IDs as a way to learn about the cohesion and relation between these BGs. We include a period of political change and institutional and economic modernisation in Chile, which also involved a transformation in the character of the entrepreneurial class in the country. We find that the state BG has played an important role in the networks of Chilean capitalism. Our work complements the literature on BGs and state capitalism, showing the rich nature of social networks in a capitalist society.

Comparisons of Faculty and Student Definitions of Entrepreneurship

In this study, two groups of people, instructors who taught entrepreneurial focused classes (N = 46) and students enrolled in entrepreneurial classes (N = 138) were asked to define entrepreneurship. The responses were coded into general categories and the categories were compared across groups. Student responses were also analyzed based on several other demographic variables including gender, relationship to entrepreneurial parents, prior entrepreneurial experiences, and major. Results highlight some of the different perceptions and goals that students and faculty hold regarding entrepreneurship.

Making Sense of the Postwar Middle Class

Making Sense of the Postwar Middle Class Charles L. Ponce de Leon (bio) Lawrence R. Samuel. The American Middle Class: A Cultural History. New York: Routledge2014. 174pp. Selected bibliography and index. $135.00 (cloth); $29.95 (paper). Janice M. Traflet. A Nation of Small Shareholders: Marketing Wall Street after World War II. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013. xiv + 242 pp. Notes, essay on sources, and index. $45.00. Louis Hyman. Debtor Nation: The History of America in Red Ink. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011. 392pp. Illustrations, notes, references, and index. $24.95. For several decades, politicians and much of the American public have obsessed about the fate of the “middle class,” a concept so protean and elastic it has become almost meaningless. Being middle class can refer to income, net worth, or one’s material standard of living. It can mean education or having a particular kind of job or career. For most Americans, however, it also stands for something more nebulous: beliefs and values that transcend socioeconomic categories and make “middle class” a more widely embraced identity in the United States than in other advanced industrialized nations. The vast majority of Americans—roughly 90 percent in most surveys—think of themselves as middle class, making appeals to the middle class the modern equivalent of nineteenth-century appeals to “the people.” Social scientists have long been interested in this phenomenon and have produced some notable works exploring its political and cultural implications. So, too, have historians. But our contributions have mostly focused on “middle-class formation” in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a result, we know a great deal about how the eighteenth-century “middling sort” became a middle class of entrepreneurs and small proprietors, and how the emergence of a corporate economy gave rise to new professions and white-collar occupations and made the middle class more diverse. And we know much about how gender, religion, cultural practices, and political activism [End Page 168] helped such people see themselves as “middle class”—and distinguish themselves from the majority of Americans. We know far less, however, about the middle class in the decades after World War II, the years when, thanks to the postwar economic boom and the expansion of education, the ranks of the middle class grew. And the whole process of how so many Americans, including people who, in other countries, would have proudly identified as “working class” came to see themselves as “middle class” remains quite mysterious. Thankfully, historians have begun to turn their attention to this subject, inspiring hope that we may eventually be able to explain what it meant to be middle class in the second half of the twentieth century and why being middle class remains so appealing today. The boldest recent attempt to address the subject is Lawrence Samuel’s lively and engaging “cultural history” of the middle class. Samuel’s book is quite ambitious for so slender a work. It purports to be both a history of the postwar middle class and a history of ideas about the middle class, drawn largely from journalistic sources and notable works of social criticism. It begins after World War II and examines the growth of the middle class amid postwar prosperity. Samuel then discusses the social, cultural, and political upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s and their impact on middle-class Americans in particular. For Samuel, this was an important period of transition, when a variety of factors contributed to a “fragmentation” of the middle class. The second half of the book covers the last three decades of the century, when it seemed that the middle class was in “crisis.” In these chapters Samuel assesses developments that encouraged this belief. The best sections of the book are those that cover periods when the state of the middle class was a major source of discussion: the 1950s and early 1960s, when commentators were struck by the impact of rising incomes and living standards and concerned about the spread of conformity; and the 1980s and especially the 1990s, when it became clear that political and economic trends were threatening the privileges and expectations middle-class Americans had long taken for granted...

Hurricane Winds:VallenatoMusic and Marijuana Traffic in Colombia's First Illegal Drugs Boom

AbstractThis essay, based in large part on local oral history, uncovers the lived experience of the rural and urban popular sectors who participated in the 1970s marijuana boom along the northernmost section of the Colombian Caribbean coast. In particular, the piece narrates how the country's first class of illegal drugs merchants helped shape a key element of modern Colombian nationalism by promoting vallenato music on the local stage and hastening its conquest of the national market and imaginary in the 1970s. Marijuana intermediaries — popularly known as marimberos — sprang into action from the most marginalized rural and urban sectors of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and La Guajira region. Soon they constituted a new entrepreneurial class whose profile as successful merchants was articulated as a regional masculine identity found in popular expressions such as vallenato music. That process helped marimberos to open space for themselves in regional society and to turn vallenato into a supreme expression of Colombian popular culture. This essay examines that cultural-political process while seeking to explain why the marimberos' role in vallenato's history has been largely erased from national memory.

Groupon: let's make a deal?

Synopsis Groupon, an online coupon company, was one of many companies that considered an initial public offering (IPO) during what might be a second technology/internet/social media IPO boom in 2011. Some companies chose to postpone their IPOs, while others took advantage of the media attention focussed on technology companies, and in particular, social media firms. Should investors hop on the tech IPO bandwagon, or hold off to better evaluate the long-term prospects of tech companies, and in particular social media companies? Would the valuation of Groupon justify an investment in IPO shares? Research methodology The case was researched from secondary sources, using Groupon's IPO filing information, news articles about the IPO and industry research sources, such as IBIS World. Relevant courses and levels This case is appropriate for an advanced undergraduate or MBA corporate finance or investment elective. Most introductory finance classes do not have the time to cover later chapters in a finance textbook, where information about IPOs is generally found. It could also be used at the end of a core finance course, where the instructor wanted to introduce this topic through a case study of a hard-to-value internet-based company to illustrate the difficulties in setting IPO prices. The case could also be used in an equity analysis class, an entrepreneurial finance class or an investment class, to spur discussion about valuing an internet company and choosing appropriate investments for pension fund investing. This case could also be used in a strategy class, focussing on the five forces question, and eliminating the valuation question. Theoretical basis There is a great deal of literature about IPOs and their long-term performance. An excellent source is Jay R. Ritter's research, http://bear.warrington.ufl.edu/ritter, which has a longer time period and more data than could be contained in this case. IPO puzzles include persistent undervaluing of IPOs; in other words, the offer price is lower than, and sometimes substantially lower than, the first day close price. A second issue is the generally poorer long-run performance of companies after their IPO when compared to similar firms that did not do an IPO.

ИМЭМО в начале 1990-х годов (продолжение)

The article analyzes IMEMO activities in 1992–1993, when in Russia, under the influence of both radical economic reforms and drastic weakening of the central government, a deep political crisis emerged and gained a dangerous traction, fraught with the death of a young democracy and even the collapse of the state. Under these conditions, along with economic issues, the politological research came to the fore in IMEMO – the analysis of the country's new political system, the definition of its development vector. The Center of Socio-economic and Socio-political Research of IMEMO headed by German Germanovich Diligenskii played the major role in this work. Analysts of the Center prepared a number of recommendations for public authorities concerning the creation and development of a new democratic political system in Russia. IMEMO experts paid the utmost attention to the nature of the political crisis that arose in the post-Soviet Russia in late 1991, and the ways to overcome it. In January 1993, the results of the study were presented to the discussion at the Academic Council. It was agreed that one of the main causes of the political crisis in the country was the social tensions worsening, as a consequence of the “shocking therapy” conducted by the government of Gaidar in 1992. In the discussion on the political outlook German Diligenskii, rejecting the possibility of the old command-administrative system restoration, substantiated a probability of transformation of the "market democracy" not yet established in Russia into the "authoritarian monopoly or monopoly-bureaucratic system". Noting the disunity of democratic forces, weakness of the entrepreneurial class, largely dependent on the state, Diligenskii formulated a program for uniting all adherents of “arket democracy” under the slogan of "social liberalism", which would take into account Russian specifics. Consolidation of democracy and market economy in Russia is impossible without preservation of the state territorial integrity and consolidation of the central government, with a clear division of functions and powers of its constituent branches. Monopolization (usurpation) of all power by one of the branches – legislative or executive – should not be allowed. The victory of any of them in any case would mean the defeat of democracy. Such was, in general terms, the position of IMEMO in the face of the 1992–1993 political crisis. Acknowledgement. The publication was prepared as part of the President of Russian Federation grant to support the leading scientifi c schools NSh-6452.2014.6.

Weak States, Unruly Capitalists, and the Rise of Étatism in Late Developers: The Case of Turkey

Understanding why some nations turned to étatism in the early stages of economy building remains central to political economy. A general consensus, although it comes in different versions, holds that étatism became the developmental policy in nations where indigenous entrepreneurial classes were weak and small. Traditional accounts of Turkish turn to étatism in the 1930s generally draw on this premise. This article challenges these perspectives that associate étatism with a strong state and a weak entrepreneurial class. I argue that the turn to étatism in Turkey did not simply result from the developmental shortcomings of the newly emerging private sector. The state's own shortcomings at governing the newly emerging class of self-interest seeking entrepreneurs, and instituting order in the markets was a major factor.

De-Judaizing a Class, Hellenizing a City: Jewish Merchants and the Future of Salonica in Greek Public Discourse, 1913–1914

Current historiography approaches the passage of Salonican Jewry from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek nation-state from a macroscopic perspective. Concentrating on state-minority relations, it focuses exclusively on external forces, treating Salonican Jews as a homogenized community and ignoring the role of the city’s non-Jews. To reassess the importance of the local dynamic, this article examines processes within Salonica itself. Through a close reading of a debate over the city’s commercial future, it considers the shifts in Greco-Jewish relations and the swift reversal of ethnic hierarchies within the city’s entrepreneurial elite that took place at a time when Greek government circles still included the Jews in their vision of a commercially prosperous Greek Salonica. In 1913–14, the Salonican Chamber of Commerce’s proposal to establish a free port generated a heated discussion that transcended the boundaries of professional deliberations and entered the local public sphere. The Greek New Club, an organization whose members were drawn from Salonica’s still small and economically weak Greek entrepreneurial class, became heavily involved in the debate, broadening the field of entrepreneurial politics, marginalizing the existing multiethnic Ottoman commercial institutions, and ultimately elevating itself as the rightful representative of a class and a city’s broader interests. At the same time, the Greek press identified the proposal’s advocates as Jewish businessmen and discursively constructed them as un-Greek. Before the aggressive policies of a nationalizing state led to the complete marginalization of Salonica’s Jews during the interwar period, this historically particular local interplay of class and ethnicity was instrumental in laying the groundwork for the de-Judaization of the city.

When the war is over: Lithgow, Western Sydney and the search for higher education options

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the interaction between a liminal rural Australian city (Lithgow) and the development of higher education options across the city's history. The paper proposes a nuanced interaction between national, social, religious, political, regional and local forces to explain why an industrial city such as Lithgow, with obvious educational strengths, would be overlooked while others (such as Wollongong and Bathurst) were not. Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes the form of a longitudinal study of educational institutions, placed in their historical contexts, in order to demonstrate the fluctuation of educational vision with the rise and fall of socio-economic contributors to the town's fortunes. Findings – The paper finds that the city's formation and dependence on war-related industries created boom-bust cycles which negatively impacted on its entrepreneurial, managerial and working class elites, and so on its ability to bring cultural and political influence to bear in the formation of local higher education options, across a period in which higher education becomes an increasingly federal responsibility. Practical implications – The paper suggests policy ramifications for the support of higher education options in the city. Social implications – The paper supports the interpretation that it is not merely that education itself promotes social mobility, but that what type of education is important, along with an eye to how education contributes to the overall well-being and cross-class profile of the city of Lithgow. Originality/value – This paper fills a gap in historical knowledge about Lithgow's educational institutions, the study of which heretofore has tended to be located with either labor historical or heritage approaches. This paper takes a socio-cultural and longitudinal/holistic approach which brings together a variety of approaches previously not treated.

Saving the neighborhood: racially restrictive covenants, law, and social norms

Saving the Neighborhood tells the charged, still controversial story of the rise and fall of racially restrictive covenants in America, and offers rare insight into the ways legal and social norms reinforce one another, acting with pernicious efficacy to codify and perpetuate intolerance. The early 1900s saw an unprecedented migration of African Americans leaving the rural South in search of better work and equal citizenship. In reaction, many white communities instituted property agreements--covenants--designed to limit ownership and residency according to race. Restrictive covenants quickly became a powerful legal guarantor of segregation, their authority facing serious challenge only in 1948, when the Supreme Court declared them legally unenforceable in Shelley v. Kraemer. Although the ruling was a shock to courts that had upheld covenants for decades, it failed to end their influence. In this incisive study, Richard Brooks and Carol Rose unpack why. At root, covenants were social signals. Their greatest use lay in reassuring the white residents that they shared the same goal, while sending a warning to would-be minority entrants: keep out. The authors uncover how loosely knit urban and suburban communities, fearing ethnic mixing or even tipping, were fair game to a new class of entrepreneurs who catered to their fears while exacerbating the message encoded in covenants: that black residents threatened white property values. Legal racial covenants expressed and bestowed an aura of legitimacy upon the wish of many white neighborhoods to exclude minorities. Sadly for American race relations, their legacy still lingers.