With great power comes great responsibility: crowdsourcing raises methodological and ethical questions for academia

Crowdsourcing offers researchers ready access to large numbers of participants, while enabling the processing of huge, unique datasets. However, the power of crowdsourcing raises several issues, including whether or not what initially emerged as a business practice can be transformed into a sound research method. Isabell Stamm and Lina Eklund argue that the complexities of managing large numbers of people mean crowdsourcing reduces participants to one faceless crowd. Applied to research, this is inherently problematic as it contradicts the basic idea that we control who participates in our studies. This not only challenges scientific rules of representativeness but also leaves methodological designs vulnerable to researchers’ implicit assumptions about the crowd

Drawing Samples for the Longitudinal Study of Entrepreneurial Groups from Process-Generated Data: A Proposal Based on the German Register of Companies

The growing interest in entrepreneurial groups as collective actors of entrepreneurship raises questions of how and with what kind of data this unit of analysis can be studied. While sampling and access to data on individual entrepreneurs (self-employed) or their business ventures (formal firms) rest upon established routines, a methodological discussion about identifying and sampling entrepreneurial groups is still in its infancy. In this article, we look at process-generated data as a potential linchpin to study entrepreneurial groups. More particularly, this article critically reflects upon the opportunities and challenges of the German Commercial Registry (CR) to function as a sampling frame and data source for an examination of entrepreneurial groups. This reflection includes a discussion about the key characteristics of entrepreneurial groups in order to derive minimal criteria that the data needs to provide, an evaluation of the CR following a data source study approach, and finally an assessment of the error proneness of this data and its consequences for the study of entrepreneurial groups. On this basis, we propose a sampling strategy of entrepreneurial groups with CR data. As such, this article contributes to a general methodological discussion of process-generated data, as it extends and practically applies the concept of a data source study. It also contributes to a methodological discussion about entrepreneurial groups as it offers a procedure to deal with varying group boundaries and the intertwinement of group and business activity typical for this social unit of analysis

Unternehmerfamilien: über den Einfluss des Unternehmens auf Lebenslauf, Generationenbeziehungen und soziale Identität

"Diese empirische Untersuchung zeichnet ein Portrait moderner Unternehmerfamilien - eine soziale Einheit, die bisher im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs wenig Beachtung gefunden hat. Erkenntnisleitend sind die Begriffe Lebenslauf, Biografie und alltägliche Lebensführung. So soll - im Gegensatz zu systemtheoretischen Perspektiven - das 'ganze Leben' der Unternehmerfamilien in den Blick genommen werden." (Verlagsangabe). Aus dem Inhalt: Tatort Unternehmerfamilie; Familie eigener Art?; Die Besonderheiten von Unternehmerfamilien; Theoretischer Ansatz: Ein Zugang zum "Ganzen Leben"; Grundzüge der empirischen Vorgehensweise; Lebenslauf und Lebensführung des Familienunternehmers; Familiale (Generationen-)Beziehungen in Unternehmerfamilien

Unternehmerfamilien

This empirical study draws a portrait of modern entrepreneurial families - a social unit that has received little attention in scientific discourse so far. The terms life course, biography and everyday life are the guiding concepts of this study. Thus, in contrast to system-theoretical perspectives, the "whole life" of entrepreneurial families is to be taken into account

Entrepreneurial Groups: Definition, Forms, and Historic Change

This article connects with the rapidly expanding idea that entrepreneurship is a collective action undergone by entrepreneurial groups - a debate so fundamental in its impact that it may ring in a paradigm shift in entrepreneurship studies. Yet, the emerging small group perspective to entrepreneurship treats the empirical phenomena as new, whereas historical studies suggest that entrepreneurial groups have been present all along, but have taken different forms across time and cultures. We adopt the view that the concept of entrepreneurial groups, which can function as an overarching term for various forms of collective engagement in entrepreneurship, goes beyond start-ups and new venture teams. This article features a broad definition of entrepreneurial groups as collaborative circles engaged in an entrepreneurial project and operating under organizational pressures. Such conceptualization is important because it allows a context-sensitive perspective of entrepreneurial groups that attends to the social and historic circumstances of group formation and their development. The papers featured in this special issue highlight diverse theoretical and empirical approaches to assist in understanding collective actors in entrepreneurship and further our understanding about entrepreneurial groups

Unternehmerfamilien

This empirical study draws a portrait of modern entrepreneurial families - a social unit that has received little attention in scientific discourse so far. The terms life course, biography and everyday life are the guiding concepts of this study. Thus, in contrast to system-theoretical perspectives, the "whole life" of entrepreneurial families is to be taken into account

The influence of the business on life courses, generational relations and social identity

Der Begriff Unternehmerfamilien weckt Vorstellungen eines „patriarchalen Familienclans“, in dem ökonomische Macht und vertraute Familienbeziehungen auf sonderbar konzentrierte Weise über Generationen verbunden sind und in buddenbrookscher Manier zu verfallen drohen. Isabell Stamm legt eine wissenschaftliche Auseinandersetzung mit dieser sozialen Einheit vor. Ausgangspunkt der Untersuchung bildet die Frage: Auf welche Weise beeinflussen Unternehmen das Leben und das Beziehungsgefüge von Unternehmerfamilien? Die sich wandelnde gesellschaftliche Bedeutung von Unternehmerfamilien wird ebenso thematisiert wie ihre zentralen Merkmale. Es wird ein konzeptionelles Modell über die Dimensionen des wechselseitigen Einflusses von Unternehmen und Familien entwickelt, das die spezifischen Strukturen von Unternehmerfamilien fasst. Im Unterschied zu einer systemtheoretischen Perspektive fangen die Leitbegriffen Lebenslauf, Biografie und Alltägliche Lebensführung das „ganze Leben“ der Unternehmerfamilien ein. Auf diese Weise entsteht ein Ansatz, der die alltäglichen Tätigkeiten zur Aufrechterhaltung der Unternehmerfamilie in ihrem zeitlichen Verlauf versteht. Die empirische Untersuchung folgt einer biografietheoretischen Vorgehensweise. Die Ergebnisdarstellung beschreitet einmal hypothetisch den Lebensweg eines Familienunternehmers von der Kindheit, über die Berufswahl und Familiengründung bis ins Alter. Es gelingt, den Einfluss des Unternehmens auf das Leben der Mitglieder einer Unternehmerfamilie in unterschiedlichen Lebensphasen zu beschreiben und Pfadabhängigkeiten zu identifizieren. Anschließend wird das spezifische generationale Setting als eine Figuration, gefasst, die die Form eines unmittelbaren Aushandlungsprozesses annimmt. Die Autorin benennt eine Reihe von zu bewältigenden Koordinierungsaufgaben und identifiziert typische Modi der Verhandlungsweisen. Die aus dem empirischen Material generierten theoretischen Verallgemeinerungen zeichnen ein Portrait moderner Unternehmerfamilien.This empirical study focuses on how a business might influence the relational structure and way of life for an entrepreneurial family, thus it entails sociological scrutiny of a social unit that has received little research attention, despite its impact on our modern economy. Isabell Stamm unveils the conditions of their specific constellation and the resulting challenges, as well as the strategies developed to cope with these challenges. The conceptual part of this monograph addresses the evolving social meanings of this social unit along with its central characteristics and leads into a conceptual model for the reciprocal influence of the business and the family, which theorizes the specific structures and conditions of entrepreneurial families. The empirical investigation describes the influence of the business on the life of entrepreneurial family members at different stages in their lives, identifies dependencies along the way, and focuses on the particularities of the generational setting in entrepreneurial families

Organized Communities as a Hybrid Form of Data Sharing: Experiences from the Global STEP Project

With this article, I explore a new way of how social scientists can share primary qualitative data with each other. More specifically, I examine organized research communities, which are small membership groups of scholars. This hybrid form of data sharing is positioned between informal sharing through collaboration and institutionalized sharing through accessing research archives. Using the global "Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices" (STEP) project as an example, I draw attention to the pragmatic practices of data sharing in such communities. Through ongoing negotiations, organized communities can, at least temporarily, put forward sharing policies and create a culture of data sharing that elevates the re-use of qualitative data while being mindful of the data's intersubjective and processual character

A bitter adjustment for German family capitalism: Succession and a changing ownership transfer regime

Germany is known for its family-owned businesses that transfer ownership across generations. However, business owners in Germany increasingly envision selling their business beyond the family, which fundamentally changes the institutionalized way private ownership of businesses is transferred. In this paper, we analyze and explain this fundamental change in German family capitalism since the 1990s. Drawing on a sociology of ownership, we view family succession as a transfer regime and show how this regime has been problematized and gradually reframed. Based on analysis of a rich corpus of documents, archival materials, and twenty-seven expert interviews, we show how a new transfer regime - the exit regime - emerges, which coordinates ownership transfer among founders through matchmaking. Our study contributes to research on family capitalism and succession by demonstrating how family capital moves toward the financial sector without becoming financial capital as it loses the family and gains the founder as personalized points of reference.Deutschland ist für seine Familienunternehmen bekannt, die das Eigentum am Unternehmen innerhalb der Familie halten und es familienintern an die nächste Generation übergeben. Allerdings ziehen immer mehr Unternehmenseigentümer in Betracht, ihr Unternehmen an Externe zu verkaufen, wodurch sich die institutionalisierte Form des Eigentumstransfers von Unternehmen stark wandelt. In diesem Discussion Paper analysieren und erläutern wir diesen sich seit den 1990er-Jahren vollziehenden Wandel, der den Familienkapitalismus in Deutschland grundlegend verändert. Wir setzen uns aus der Perspektive einer Soziologie des Eigentums mit familieninterner Nachfolge als spezifischem Transferregime auseinander und zeigen, wie dieses Regime problematisiert und allmählich umgestaltet wurde. Anhand der Analyse einer umfangreichen Sammlung von Dokumenten und Archivmaterialien sowie von 27 Experteninterviews veranschaulichen wir, wie sich ein neues Transferregime - das Exit-Regime - herausbildet, das den Eigentumstransfer zwischen 'Gründern' über moderierte Vermittlung koordiniert. Unsere Studie leistet einen Betrag zur Forschung über Familienkapitalismus und Nachfolge, indem sie verdeutlicht, wie Familienkapital finanzialisiert wird, ohne dabei selbst zu Finanzkapital zu werden, solange die Familie mit dem Gründer als persönlichem Bezugspunkt ersetzt wird