Recent surveys show that more than half of American entrepreneurs share ownership in their business startups rather than going it alone, and experts in international entrepreneurship have likewise ...noted the importance of groups in securing microcredit and advancing entrepreneurial initiatives in the developing world. Yet the media and many scholars continue to perpetuate the myth of the lone visionary who single-handedly revolutionizes the marketplace.The Entrepreneurial Groupshatters this myth, demonstrating that teams, not individuals, are the leading force behind entrepreneurial startups.
This is the first book to provide an in-depth sociological analysis of entrepreneurial groups, and to put forward a theoretical framework--called relational demography--for understanding activities and outcomes within them. Martin Ruef looks at entrepreneurial teams in the United States during the boom years of the late 1990s and the recent recessionary bust. He identifies four mechanisms for explaining the dynamics of entrepreneurial groups: in-group biases on salient demographic dimensions; intimate relationships to spouses, cohabiting partners, and kin; a tendency to organize activities in residential or "virtual" spaces; and entrepreneurial goals that prioritize social and psychological fulfillment over material well-being. Ruef provides evidence showing when favorable outcomes--with respect to group formalization, equality, effort, innovation, and survival--follow from these mechanisms.
The Entrepreneurial Groupreveals how studying the social structure of entrepreneurial action can shed light on the creation of new organizations.
Public policy in the United States is marked by a contradiction between the American ideal of equality and the reality of an underclass of marginalized and disadvantaged people who are widely viewed ...as undeserving and incapable. Deserving and Entitled provides a close inspection of many different policy arenas, showing how the use of power and the manipulation of images have made it appear both natural and appropriate that some target populations benefit from policy, while others do not. These social constructions of deservedness and entitlement, unless challenged, become amplified over time and institutionalized into permanent lines of social, economic, and political cleavage. The contributors here express concern that too often public policy sends messages harmful to democracy and contributes significantly to the pattern of uneven political participation in the United States.
This book presents a detailed analysis of the translation of the Qur’an in Saudi Arabia, the most important global actor in the promotion, production and dissemination of Qur’an translations. From ...the first attempts at translation in the mid-twentieth century to more recent state-driven efforts concerned with international impact, The Kingdom and the Qur’an adeptly elucidates the link between contemporary Islamic theology and the advent of modern print culture. It investigates this critical juncture in both Middle Eastern political history and the intellectual evolution of the Muslim world, interweaving literary, socio-historical, and socio-anthropological threads to depict the intricate backdrop of the Saudi ‘Qur'an translation movement’. Mykhaylo Yakubovych provides a comprehensive historical overview of the debates surrounding the translatability of the Qur'an, as well as exploring the impact of the burgeoning translation and dissemination of the holy book upon Wahhabi and Salafi interpretations of Islam. Backed by meticulous research and drawing on a wealth of sources, this work illuminates an essential facet of global Islamic culture and scholarly discourse.
