'NOVI PODJETNIKI' NA ZAČETKU DEVETDESETIH V SRBIJI
'NEW ENTREPRENEURS' IN THE EARLY NINETIES IN SERBIA

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents the results of a recent (1992) survey based on a sample of 373 'new entrepreneurs" in Serbia including owner-founders of private firms (who are not managers), owner-managers of private firms, and managers who are not owners. In the first section, the "expansiveness" of this new social category in Serbian society at the beginning of the 1990s is stressed, as well as its social heterogeneity and the lack of "social crystallization" In the following sections the analytical findings which particularly underline the new managers "social profile", are presented, i .e . their status in the firm, activity branch, previous occupation, family tradition in private business, etc., the socio-demographic features (age, sex) and certain perceived "personal traits". According to the findings, 79 percent of "new entrepreneurs" have the status of owner-manager of a private firm; two-thirds of these firms have no more than 5 employees, including the owner; Approximately 45 percent of these firms are in the "trade" sector, and as many as 85 percent of them are in the "service sector" of the economy (trade included). The majority (55 percent) of "new entrepreneurs" have only secondary level education, while managers of the former 'self-managed" firms had predominantly high education (90 percent of them). 60 percent of "new entrepreneurs" were previously employed in "socially owned" firms, while 25 percent were unemployed, and 8 percent had some experience in working for foreign firms. A considerable proportion worked in the commercial and managerial sections of former "socially owned' firms.

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