Phenomenon of the entrepreneur: interpreting the notions

Abstract

Sociologists researching Russian entrepreneurs and other new social groups of the post-Soviet era, generally resort to quantitative methods. Conversely, the author believes that qualitative approaches, particularly those based on phenomenological and linguistic analysis, provide a more relevant understanding of modern Russian society.There is no shortage of interpretations of changes that the Russian society has been undergoing in the past several years. The author believes that the nature of those changes is basically institutional, the main premise being an abrupt transmutation of a societal ideological system brought about by the liberation of the society from an uncompromising official ideology, stringent formal limitations of social roles. And this is exactly when a new type of social actors makes its entrance.Homo faber — the social actor — becomes above all a man of reflection, whose social activity is primarily focused on the interpretation of the new environment, on attributing new meanings to a novel reality. The times of anomie prompted by the disintegration of the old institutional system are marked by multiple modes of everyday thinking struggling for recognition in the emerging new institutional order of the society.A new social stratum of "entrepreneurs" has come into existence. There is as yet no widely accepted stereotype meaning attributed to the notion of "entrepreneur", nor is there any widespread perception of the goals and meaning of "entrepreneurship", these notions being shaped by the social actors juxtaposing emerging meanings in the course of everyday observations, testing these meanings against reality.A combination of phenomenological and linguistic approaches provides an opportunity to study social processes of this kind.The proposed approach is used in the work to interpret certain results of a two-stage empirical sociological research conducted by a group of scholars (including the author) in the Institute of economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The first stage consisted of interviews of 27 experts on issues of Russian entrepreneurship; the second included the questioning of 277 owners/directors/CEOs of non-government companies based in Moscow.Interpreting the interviews with experts the author suggests the following typology of a "modern Russian entrepreneur". The first type — "The Authoritarian" — is individualistic, not values-motivated, treating the Russian society as an ignorant mass of "palace-bashing tramps". The second type — "The Capitalist" — is distinguished by a pronounced self-identification (views him-herself as such) and is convinced that only money makes a man in the contemporary Russian society. The third type — "The Simple Free Man" — became an entrepreneur in the quest for freedom, has a modest lifestyle, works to benefit others, to pursue ideals. The fourth — "The Character" — does not really care what is it that he/she is doing, what matters to this person is to prove to him/herself that he/she is capable of doing things.To elucidate what is it that the entrepreneurs believe to be the purpose and meaning of their actions the author uses certain information obtained from questioning the management of non-government companies, in particular, the answers to the two open questions of the questionnaire: "What do you understand by entrepreneurial success?" and "What would you like to achieve in the next two years?". Both questions invoke success — business achievements in the former instance, personal accomplishment in the latter.Interpreting the answers, the author constructs a generalized image of a person operating in the entrepreneurial milieu. This person's basic feature is a perception of the purpose and meaning of his/her deeds that is determined primarily by his/her focus on the work. He/she treats his/her work as an undertaking that is shared with partners, that benefits the society, others; he/she identifies his/her personal interest not with individual success, but mostly with the interests of business, those of the partners, of the society. A happy family or personal security are not among his/her goals.Moreover, he/she does not seek to improve his/her social status or secure political power, does not appreciate professionalism and education, does not crave for a prestige position in the social hierarchies and cares little for his/her firm's image. Today he/she associates success with growth in profits and business, and his company's stability.Besides, he/she relies not as much on luck or chance as on hard and goal-oriented work.The will to succeed is his/her another distinctive quality. He/she does not identify success with absence of failures, nor his/her goals with physical survival, the goals being business growth, personal achievements, and success.This type of entrepreneur still manifests vestiges of "collectivist mentality" but he/she no longer feels as an element of a rigid social structure. He/she does not yet view him/herself as the architect of his social status, but is already aware that the results of the work depend primarily on him/her. He/she is still identifying him/herself with his/her business, not with a particular social group. He/she is focused on success and achievements, on hard and diversified work, and the results, if and when there are any, may be just as valuable to him/her as to they may be to the society.