Former Fellows

The project attempts to analyze sociologically the small entrepreneurship in Bulgaria in the comparative perspective of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in the period 1998-2009.

Its object are the owners of micro- and small-enterprises, as well as self-employed.
The research subject is the social embeddedness of economic action of the small entrepreneurs, which is assumed to substantially differ from that of the medium-sized businesses.
Its main objectives are:
(1) To analyze the institutional, network and cultural embeddedness of economic action of the small entrepreneur and their interplay;
(2) To point out the basic similarities and differences in the modes of social embeddedness, on the basis of which to define if there is a common modus operandi of the small entrepreneurship in CEE.

The central research hypothesis is that there is no single and unified model of small entrepreneurship in CEE. Even in the same country different models, as well as typical transitions from one to another can be observed. The distinction between different models can be defined of the basis of the analysis of the interaction between institutional, network and cultural embeddedness of small enterprises.
The research will employ a micro-sociological approach within the context of the economic sociology understood as sociology of economic action.