Family and Enterprise. Cultural Encounters between the Family Life-World and the Market Economy
Family and Enterprise. Cultural Encounters between the Family Life-World and the Market Economy

Summary/Abstract: In the 1990s, after the collapse of socialism and the establishment of a market economy, a large number of married couples in Bulgaria chose to work as private entrepreneurs, establishing small family-owned enterprises. In the frameworks of these organizations, family and economic roles intertwine in individual members of the family, whereby the economic relations become an important part of the family-life world. Specific conceptions of work-kinship interrelations come to the fore in the family enterprises for the needs of the entrepreneurial practice. This article presents some features of working life in small Bulgarian family enterprises from an ethnological point of view. The reasons for the transfer of established and utilized family values and models from the private world onto the family enterprises and the world of labour are analysed. I explore the ways and cultural expressions through which this transfer is realized. Research topics include forms of leadership, attitudes towards work in family enterprises, and the building of loyalties. The study is based on empirical ethnographic fieldwork in a family enterprise in the town of Belogradčik. The methodology used includes biographical and semi-structured interviews, informal talks, and participant observation.

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