Awaiting product image

Encountering Entrepreneurs

From £30.99

Encountering Entrepreneurs

An Ethnography of the Construction Business in the North of Italy

By: Elena Sischarenco

From £30.99

This monograph probes the daily life of businessmen in a particularly productive area of Northern Italy, Lombardy. It provides insights into their business and entrepreneurialism, offering a different approach to capitalism and reflections on human nature.

This book shows the daily life of businessmen in a particularly productive area of Northern Italy, Lombardy. It provides insights into their business, entrepreneurialism, and…

Binding

Clear

Quantity

From £30.99

From £30.99

Author: Elena Sischarenco ISBN: 1-5275-2819-7 Categories: Social Sciences, Business, Management and Accounting, Business, Anthropology, Sociology

This book shows the daily life of businessmen in a particularly productive area of Northern Italy, Lombardy. It provides insights into their business, entrepreneurialism, and of them as individuals, allowing the reader to immerse themselves in these businessmen’s world, full of plans, ideas, hopes, and failures in the struggle to survive during a time of economic recession.

The analysis reveals the importance of trust and networks as a way of opposing the vulnerability and risk involved in entrepreneurialism. As such, the book has an appeal that extends beyond anthropology. It will be of interest not only to students of sociology, Italian studies, and business studies, but also to anyone with an interest in seeing business through different lenses. Through its close ethnographic accounts of businessmen, it provides a different approach to capitalism and a reflection on human nature.

Elena Sischarenco holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of St Andrews, and is an Associate of the St Andrews Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies. She has previously published on informal relations and trust, and her research interests go beyond the anthropology of business.

Hardback

ISBN: 1-5275-2819-7
ISBN13: 978-1-5275-2819-2
Date of Publication: 2019-04-10

Paperback

ISBN: 1-0364-3857-0
ISBN13: 978-1-0364-3857-9
Date of Publication: 2024-12-16

Ebook

ISBN: 1-5275-3291-7
ISBN13: 978-1-5275-3291-5
Date of Publication: 2024-12-16

Categories: Social Sciences, Business, Management and Accounting, Business, Anthropology, Sociology

Pages: 225

Subject Codes:

BIC: KJB, JHM, JHB
THEMA: KJB, JHM, JHB

Pages: 225

“I found the book to be a very original and well-written piece of work. [It] richly weaves Sischarenco’s theoretical analysis with the views and personalities of the entrepreneurs through the use of direct quotes and insightful dialogues. This approach makes her ethnography rich in detail and very enjoyable to read. Furthermore, her research sheds new light on taken-for-granted assumptions about corruption and tender practices in Italy that would be of interest not only to anthropologists, but more generally to policy makers working in Italy and elsewhere. [This] work is timely as it brings to the fore the process of entrepreneurial ethical self-making in a time of wider economic and political transformations in Italy and elsewhere.”
- Mattia Fumanti Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews, UK
“Elena Sischarenco provides a unique ethnographic account of contemporary entrepreneurialism: how small businesses survive in the world of Italian construction. Through her sensitive reportage, we witness the careful calculations of trust, friendship and familism, the competition for tenders, and how knowledge and apprenticeship, power, personality and fragility figure in the struggle for success.”
- Nigel Rapport Author of I Am Dynamite: An Alternative Anthropology of Power
“[This book is] a brilliant and unconventional ethnography of the entrepreneur and their consuming identity”
- Jonathan Skinner Reader in Social Anthropology, University of Roehampton, UK
“The book is a real novelty in the scenario of Italian social anthropology. Elena Sischarenco explores the fragmented world of little- and medium-size companies in the construction business in the province of Bergamo, following the entrepreneurs, winning their resistance, and obtaining their - sometimes unconditioned – trust. The book is an unafraid exploration of the “blurred borders between what is considered to be illegal and what it is not”, a crucial crossroad in every company ethical profile. Sischarenco’s analysis is always passionate and involved. She never “takes the distance” from her field, she doesn’t even try, which makes her book even more convincing and powerful."
- Elena Bougleux Professor of Cultural Anthropology, University of Bergamo, Italy

Meet The Author

Elena Sischarenco

No products were found matching your selection.