Ruef I Lounsburry
Ruef I Lounsburry
Ruef I Lounsburry
The Sociology of
Entrepreneurship
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ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
The sociology of entrepreneurship analyzes the social context, process, and
effects of entrepreneurial activity. Within this perspective, ‘‘entrepreneur-
ship’’ can be construed either narrowly as purposive action leading to the
creation of new formal organizations, or more broadly as any effort to
guilds
Corporation Joint stock merchant Yes Yes Yes Yes
companies
Introduction: The Sociology of Entrepreneurship 7
insist that ‘‘members are personally liable, as debtors, for one another’’
(2003, p. 98). As this notion of liability, grounded in communal labor, was
replaced by a notion of joint liability, grounded in communal investment,
the legal conditions emerged for corporate actors that were fully separate
from the ‘‘natural’’ persons that created them (Coleman, 1974).
The sociological issues raised in the HCP should be ones of central con-
cern to the sociology of entrepreneurship. Many of us – especially those
raised in an Anglo-American context – take it for granted that individuals
can readily construct autonomous, organizational entities to act on their
behalf. But, consistent with the intuitions of contemporary neoinstitutional
scholars (Meyer & Jepperson, 2000; Hwang & Powell, 2005), Weber’s com-
parative analysis suggests that societies differ greatly in the amount of
agency they accord to entrepreneurs and their organizational ventures. In-
stitutional frameworks strongly influence whether collective enterprises are
short-lived affairs that are tied closely to the fates of their creators, or
whether they are able to develop as independent and, potentially, perpetual
legal fictions.4
In addition to studying the context affecting entrepreneurial activity,
Weber’s scholarship in the HCP also addressed variation in entrepreneurial
processes and organizational forms. One rich exemplar is his comparison of
the unilateral commenda, where investment capital is only provided by a
single party, and the bilateral commenda, which entails investment from (at
least) two parties. Each organizational form involved both a commendator
(or passive investor) and an entrepreneur known as a tractator (see Fig. 1).
The unilateral commenda differed, however, in that all of the financial risk
was born on the part of the passive investor, who contributed to a fund that
would be managed by the tractator, serving as his or her agent. In contrast
to prevailing legal wisdom, Weber (2003, pp. 135–136) argued that the lack
of a separate corporate fund in the unilateral commenda (rather than a fund
that simply contained personal assets of the commendator) meant that it
was not an institutional precursor of modern partnerships. In fact, the weak
organizational foundation that the unilateral commenda provided for en-
trepreneurial ventures (cf. Table 1) led to its replacement by simpler forms
of financing, such as commercial loans. The bilateral commenda, by con-
trast, allowed for the existence of a fund that was separate from the assets of
investors and entrepreneurs and, therefore, served as a legal template for a
distinctive organizational form (the limited partnership).5
A final topic addressed by Weber in the HCP, albeit briefly, concerned the
consequences of entrepreneurship. In surveying the differences between the
limited and general partnership, Weber speculated about the implications
8 MARTIN RUEF AND MICHAEL LOUNSBURY
+75% +50%
Commendator Commendator
-100% -66%
100% 66%
Managed Separate
Venture Venture
Fund Fund
Agency 33%
+25% +50%
Tractator Tractator
-0% -33%
ASQ, AMJ AJS, ASR BJS, ESR ASQ, AMJ AJS, ASR BJS, ESR
orchestras – in the United States during the late 19th century (DiMaggio,
1982a, 1982b). His emphasis on societal (rather than narrowly organiza-
tional) effects of entrepreneurship remains a prominent feature of sociological
scholarship.
Through the following decade, the sociology of entrepreneurship contin-
ued to exhibit a highly eclectic range of topics. However, sustained research
programs began to emerge in a number of key areas, which we highlight as
central themes in this volume. First, many sociologists recognized that mo-
bility into and out of entrepreneurship was an important feature of strat-
ification in modern societies (Granovetter, 1984), including those societies
that were just beginning their transition to capitalism (Rona-Tas, 1994; Nee,
1996; see also Inkeles & Smith, 1974). Hout (1984) highlighted the inter-
generational transmission of entrepreneurial attitudes and organizing skills
as being of special relevance to stratification processes. Second, a number of
scholars extended the emphasis on enclaves of immigrant entrepreneurs, as
pioneered by Lee in the 1940s and Light in the 1970s (see Light, 2005, for a
useful review). Modern empirical debates in the area often centered on the
question as to whether the segregation and solidarity entailed by enclaves
generated economic benefits for immigrants and whether these benefits
differed between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs (Sanders & Nee,
1987; Portes & Jensen, 1989; Portes & Zhou, 1996). Third, organizational
and economic sociologists began to display considerable interest in the im-
pact of interorganizational networks on entrepreneurial activity, including
entrepreneurs’ ties to suppliers and distributors (Uzzi, 1997), banks (Uzzi,
1999), venture capitalists (Stuart, Hoang, & Hybels, 1999), and academia
(Louis, Blumenthal, Gluck, & Stoto, 1989). The university–industry inter-
face emerged as a particularly promising locus for scholars interested in
high-tech entrepreneurship (Owen-Smith, Riccaboni, Pammolli, & Powell,
2002). Finally, a number of entrepreneurship scholars sought to transcend
developments at the organizational level to understand the ecological, in-
stitutional, and social movement processes affecting the emergence of new
forms of organizations (Romanelli, 1991; Ruef, 2000). Examples in the lit-
erature highlighted forms that were initially perceived as deviant cases, such
as pro-choice groups (Staggenborg, 1988) and consumer watchdog organ-
izations (Rao, 1998), but which were transformed by entrepreneurs to adapt
to – and influence – the cognitive and normative expectations of their au-
diences. Such cultural entrepreneurship has become a key theme in research
on institutional change and how entrepreneurs mobilize resources (e.g.,
Lounsbury & Glynn, 2001).
Introduction: The Sociology of Entrepreneurship 13
Hannan & Freeman, 1987; Baum & Oliver, 1992). Notably, very few of the
articles that discuss founding processes also include mentions of entrepre-
neurship in their titles or abstracts.
In recent years, the bulk of work on entrepreneurship that can broadly be
defined as being sociological has appeared in specialty journals, including
the Journal of Business Venturing (JBV), Journal of Small Business Man-
agement (JSBM), Small Business Economics (SBE), Entrepreneurship and
Regional Development (E&RD), and Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice
(ET&P). For instance, an ABI search reveals that ET&P has featured
95 articles that make reference to ‘‘sociology’’, since the inception of the
journal in 1988. When one considers the proliferation of academic entre-
preneurship journals – Katz (2003) identified nearly 50 – this suggests that
there may be a fairly large amount of recent scholarship that is pertinent to
the sociology of entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, quantity cannot be
equated with quality. The sheer numbers of specialized journals contribute
to the publication of many papers that do not meet the highest standards of
methodological or conceptual rigor. The marginal status of such work is
reflected in the meager citation impact of the specialty journals. Only four –
JBV, JSBM, SBE, and E&RD – are listed in the Social Science Citation
Index (SSCI) and their impact ratings (all under 0.6 in 2000) are low com-
pared to those of the top American management and sociology journals
(above 2.3 in 2000 for all those listed in Table 2).
What accounts for the limited impact of scholarship on entrepreneurs,
considered in the context of American sociology and management theory, as
well as the international field of sociology? While concrete instances of mar-
ginalization remain elusive, two mechanisms might suggest why entrepre-
neurship research lacks a mainstream presence in the discipline: (a) theoretical
dissension concerning the definition and dynamics of entrepreneurship; and
(b) ideological opposition to the study of entrepreneurial phenomena. Below,
we argue that there is only weak evidence for the first of these mechanisms
and very little for the latter.
Defining Entrepreneurship
CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH ON
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Context of Effects of
Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship
may propose a causal association between the left- and right-hand sides of
the figure at any level beyond the individual. As we noted in our review of
definitions of entrepreneurship, a common tack in sociological theories of
modernization has been to conceptualize entrepreneurship in terms of eco-
nomic development at the highest level of aggregation. A second ecological
approach, found in organizational ecology, is to explain organizational
founding rates (aggregated at the population level) as a direct function of
the size and distribution of organizational populations.
The papers represented in this volume exemplify the wide array of levels
and causal mechanisms that can be invoked in the sociology of entrepre-
neurship. The articles in Part I employ a contextual perspective to under-
stand entry into entrepreneurial activity. Aldrich and Kim couch their
argument at the level of individual entrepreneurs and their distinct life course
stages, addressing whether entrepreneurial parents pass on privilege – i.e.
genetic inheritances, human capital, financial resources, social capital, and
motivation – to their children. Surveying a range of empirical studies, as well
as preliminary findings from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics
(PSED), they argue that there is strong evidence for genetic inheritance
and value socialization during childhood, moderate evidence for adolescent
reinforcement of socialization patterns, and weak evidence for parental
transfers of financial resources or social capital to adult entrepreneurs.
Sorensen offers a complementary analysis of entry into self-employment,
but draws instead on new Danish data set. Consistent with our distinction
between material-resource and cognitive dimensions of entrepreneurship,
he differentiates two mechanisms of intergenerational transmission: occu-
pational closure, which emphasizes the propensity of parents to pass on
tangible financial and social capital, and occupational exposure, which ad-
dresses the impact of parental socialization on aspirations and skills. Like
Aldrich and Kim, he finds that there is little evidence for occupational
closure, but considerable support for the intuition that exposure to entre-
preneurial parental role models before adulthood can drive entry into self-
employment.
While a contextual perspective is perhaps the most common framework
for understanding entry into entrepreneurship, the topic can also be pursued
from a behavioral approach. Xu and Ruef take the existence of a startup
and focal entrepreneur as given, and then ask how members of that focal
entrepreneur’s support network are sorted into organizational ‘‘insider’’
roles (owner-managers) and ‘‘outsider’’ roles (passive investors and advi-
sors). The question of transition into entrepreneurial activity is thus re-
framed as a behavioral process of drawing membership boundaries within
Introduction: The Sociology of Entrepreneurship 21
an emergent organization. Analyzing the PSED data set, they find that the
cognitive aspects of boundary formation, which emphasizes trust among
startup participants, are generally more salient than material-resource as-
pects, which emphasize considerations such as asset specificity and non-
redundancy of participant contributions.
Part II of the volume turns to the topics of immigrant entrepreneurship
and enclaves. Portes and Shafer revisit a path-breaking study of Cuban
immigrants 20 years later to understand changing patterns of ethnic enter-
prise in Miami. Contrary to common intuitions among labor economists,
who often argue that ethnic enclaves represent mobility ‘‘traps’’ for immi-
grants, they find that self-employed Cubans in the Miami enclave enjoy
considerable benefits from entrepreneurial activity, provided that they can
tap into the extensive social networks and legitimacy of the pre-Mariel
generation of Cuban immigrants. Portes and Shafer conclude that most of
the previous arguments against upward mobility within ethnic enclaves have
rested on faulty measures of the enclave concept or inadequate understand-
ing of enclave history. In a parallel paper on ethnic commercial precincts,
Pang and Rath employ a ‘‘multiple embeddedness’’ perspective to under-
stand the effects of immigrant entrepreneurship, tracing entrepreneurial
agency back to the community level. While much of the literature has
focused on ethnic networks and culture, they argue that this focus must
be balanced with attention to the regulatory environment. Considering
Washington DC’s Chinatown as an illustrative case, Pang and Rath show
how ethnic enclaves can persist – at least, symbolically – even when they are
challenged by the encroachment of nonethnic enterprises.
The studies in the first two parts of the volume address both the micro-
level context and process of entrepreneurship, as well as some macro-level
consequences. Within these perspectives, formal organizations make a
somewhat tentative appearance, either as emergent entities or as part of the
infrastructural background of a community. In the next two parts of the
volume, organizations assume center stage. Part III emphasizes academic
entrepreneurship within specific organizational settings. Colyvas and Powell
offer a detailed historical study of the emergence and spread of biomedical
entrepreneurship at Stanford University between 1970 and 2000. They
demonstrate that the engagement of faculty members in invention disclosure
is not simply a matter of individual predilection, but depends to a consid-
erable extent on the structure and content of organizational networks link-
ing scientists into research clusters. The article by Evans provides a
complementary constructivist perspective, showing how academics in mo-
lecular biology plant laboratories opened a new field of entrepreneurial
22 MARTIN RUEF AND MICHAEL LOUNSBURY
CONCLUSION
Taken as a whole, the articles in this volume highlight how the sociological
imagination emphasizes the need for a richly nuanced, multilevel perspective
on entrepreneurship. Unlike economic and psychological approaches to the
phenomenon, sociological analyses suggest that entrepreneurship cannot be
adequately understood outside of its socio-cultural context. To make further
progress in creating a unified framework for a sociology of entrepreneurship
Introduction: The Sociology of Entrepreneurship 23
NOTES
1. It must be acknowledged, of course, that sociologists do not have a monopoly on a
perspective that addresses contextual, nonmaterial, and nonmarket aspects of entrepre-
neurship. To name just two prominent counterexamples, consider the work of Annalee
Saxenian (1994, 2006), an urban geographer, on regional advantage; or the interest
displayed by institutional economists (e.g. Nelson, 1993) in national innovation systems.
2. Recent efforts at cross-national data collection, such as the Global Entrepreneur-
ship Monitor (GEM) project initiated in 1999, may serve to mitigate the geographic
fragmentation of scholarly work, though their sociological impact is not yet clear.
3. Notably, one major inspiration for the Protestant Ethic was an empirical study of
the relationship between occupational stratification and religious denomination, con-
ducted by his student, Martin Offenbacher. Examining statistics for the German state of
Baden around 1900, the study revealed that a disproportionate number of Protestants
owned capital and were involved in entrepreneurial activity (Käsler, 1988, p. 75).
4. Not surprisingly, the strongest imprint of this Weberian legacy can often be
found in contemporary work on the sociology of law and entrepreneurial organ-
izations (e.g. Suchman, Steward, & Westfall, 2001).
5. Naturally, medieval entrepreneurial organizations developed on this basis (such
as the societas maris) did not have many of the features that we expect to see in
modern corporate forms. They were intended to be run for particular mercantile and
trading purposes, not as continuous enterprises. Moreover, they lacked the legal
elements of joint liability (see Table 2). For a recent analysis of the origins of a more
durable partnership form, see Padgett and McLean (2006).
6. Despite Mill’s serious appropriation of the term ‘‘entrepreneur’’, it also had a
somewhat light-hearted connotation in late-Victorian Britain, as someone who or-
ganizes ‘‘entertainments’’ or directs a ‘‘musical institution’’ (Cole, 1999).
7. By no means these are intended to be exhaustive. See Hoselitz (1952) for an
early typology of definitions and Aldrich and Ruef (2006, Chapter 4) for a recent
treatment of the entrepreneurship literature.
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