‘Znakomstva I Svyazi’ (Acquaintances and connections) –Blat, the Soviet Union, and mundane entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship Theory: New Challenges and Future Prospects

“…Instead, in many post-socialist economies, privatization enabled a seizure of the most efficient assets either by the former 'nomenclature' or by large transnational companies, and led to so-called 'predatory entrepreneurship' [Feige, 1997;Spicer et al, 2000;Scase, 2003]. Top-down created businesses appeared as a result of redistribution of former state-owned assets by political entrepreneurs using their informal connections with some decision-makers [Rehn, Taalas, 2004]. In contrast, the majority of bottom-up entrepreneurs (mostly micro and small firm owners or solo entrepreneurs, termed 'proletarian' businesses here because they do not own a significant portion of the resources that they use) continue to rent their production facilities and other material resources, even after 20 years.…”

“…How the interplay of formal and informal institutions and networks influ-• ences different models of entrepreneurial behaviour [Rehn, Taalas, 2004;Batjargal, 2006]; The role of 'institutional traps' emerging in the process of transferring in-• stitutions and 'best practices' (some research has been carried out on the evolution of SME and entrepreneurship policy under 'transition': see, for example, [Smallbone, Welter, 2001]), and how these 'institutional traps' are reflected in weak outcomes of entrepreneurship in some of these countries;…”

L’entrepreneuriat endogène innovant : l’exception d’un arrondissement métropolitain concentrique1

“…La proximité socioculturelle ralentit le changement si elle est trop émotive ou si elle se contente de complaisance sinon de la médiocrité. La proximité institutionnelle peut créer un blocage ou une forte inertie qui limite l'entrepreneuriat ou oblige les entrepreneurs à user de subterfuges là où la corruption est bien installée (Rehn et Taalas, 2004). Ainsi, certaines lois ou un système de brevets trop rigide peuvent bloquer l'innovation et le changement technologique.…”

Too big, too quick?

“…"Znakomstva I Svyazi" (acquaintances and connections) have played a key role to regularize the disruptions in the soviet planning process (Rehn and Taalas, 2004). Such informal institutions still occupied a prominent place in the nineties when barter's networks were used to face the hardening of monetary conditions in a context of radical uncertainty (Huber and Wörgötter, 1998;Ould-Ahmed, 2003) and appeared to be long a lasting feature of postcommunist economies (Puffer, McCarthy and Boisot, 2009).…”