Organizational scholars have traditionally argued that formalized operations to regulate the flow of business activities and employee policies to coordinate work distribution are essential for small enterprising business sustainability and growth. However, empirical findings show that small firms do not develop, implement, or provide oversight of formal organizational practices. While small businesses seem to lack the organizational structures that are assumed to be essential for “rational” business operations and sustainability, many flourish. In order to better understand how small enterprising businesses are able to create and maintain stable organizations and adapt to internal and external pressures, this cross-industry ethnographic study of four firms examines the daily work of business owners, managers, and employees. Through a cultural analysis focusing on interpersonal relationships and the way daily business activities are legitimized, challenged, and occasionally transformed, I find that entrepreneurial firms enact three different small group performances. I label these cultural performances: routine business performance, routine crisis performance, and routine growth performance. Rather than standard operating procedures, proper emergency planning, or strategic growth initiatives, the ongoing creation of group histories, meanings, and affiliations provide the needed material to generate small group cohesion that creates order in entrepreneurial firms.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
Sociology
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Corporate culture
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Entrepreneurship
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = RULIB)
ETD
Identifier
ETD_6785
PhysicalDescription
Form (authority = gmd)
electronic resource
InternetMediaType
application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (v, 346 p. : ill.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Eric Ross Kushins
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
Location
PhysicalLocation (authority = marcorg); (displayLabel = Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey)
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
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Type
License
Name
Author Agreement License
Detail
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