In Entrepreneurs and Capitalism since Luther: Rediscovering the Moral Economy, Ivan Light and Leo-Paul Dana study the history of business, capitalism, and entrepreneurship to examine the values of social and cultural capital. Six chapters evaluate case studies that illustrate contrasting relationships between social networks, vocational culture, and entrepreneurship. Light and Dana argue that, in capitalism's early stages, cultural capital is scarcer than social capital and therefore more crucial for business owners. Conversely, when capitalism is well established, social capital is scarcer than cultural capital and becomes more crucial. Light and Dana then trace moral legitimations of capitalism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, the Gilded Age, and finally to Joseph Schumpeter whose concept of "creative destruction" freed elite entrepreneurs from moral restraints that encumber small business owners. After examining the availability of social and cultural capital in the contemporary United States, Light and Dana show that business owners' social capital enforces conventional morality in markets, facilitating commerce and legitimating small businesses the old-fashioned way. As their networks become more isolated, elite entrepreneurs must claim and ultimately deliver successful results to earn public toleration of immoral or predatory conduct.

In Entrepreneurs and Capitalism since Luther: Rediscovering the Moral Economy, Ivan Light and Leo-Paul Dana study the history of business, capitalism, and entrepreneurship to examine the values of social and cultural capital. Six chapters evaluate case studies that illustrate contrasting relationships between social networks, vocational culture, and entrepreneurship. Light and Dana argue that, in capitalism's early stages, cultural capital is scarcer than social capital and therefore more crucial for business owners. Conversely, when capitalism is well established, social capital is scarcer than cultural capital and becomes more crucial. Light and Dana then trace moral legitimations of capitalism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, the Gilded Age, and finally to Joseph Schumpeter whose concept of "creative destruction" freed elite entrepreneurs from moral restraints that encumber small business owners. After examining the availability of social and cultural capital in the contemporary United States, Light and Dana show that business owners' social capital enforces conventional morality in markets, facilitating commerce and legitimating small businesses the old-fashioned way. As their networks become more isolated, elite entrepreneurs must claim and ultimately deliver successful results to earn public toleration of immoral or predatory conduct.

First published in 1997, This book now opens the unduly delayed discussion about how Israel and the USA deal with immigration and how they are transformed by it. Approaching the discussion from the point of view of contemporary immigration research, this book prioritizes the economic processes of immigrant insertion in Israel and the USA, immigrant absorption and assimilation in both countries, policy debates, and women immigrants for extended treatment. Additionally, a photographic section mobilizes the new subject of visual sociology to continue the comparative analysis.

First published in 1997, This book now opens the unduly delayed discussion about how Israel and the USA deal with immigration and how they are transformed by it. Approaching the discussion from the point of view of contemporary immigration research, this book prioritizes the economic processes of immigrant insertion in Israel and the USA, immigrant absorption and assimilation in both countries, policy debates, and women immigrants for extended treatment. Additionally, a photographic section mobilizes the new subject of visual sociology to continue the comparative analysis.

The phenomenon of increasingly visible groups of immigrant entrepreneurs raises a host of questions. What are the causes of immigrant entrepreneurship? What are its consequences, especially as regards upward mobility and inter-ethnic relations? And what accounts for differences in entrepreneurship among ethnic groups? Ethnic Economies provides a broad overview of ethnicity and entrepreneurship, connecting it with broader studies of economic life.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.

A decade in preparation, "Immigrant Entrepreneurs" offers the most comprehensive case study ever completed of the causes and consequences of immigrant business ownership. Koreans are the most entrepreneurial of America's new immigrants. By the mid-1970s Americans had already become aware that Korean immigrants were opening, buying, and operating numerous business enterprises in major cities. When Koreans flourished in small business, Americans wanted to know how immigrants could find lucrative business opportunities where native-born Americans could not. Somewhat later, when Korean-black conflicts surfaced in a number of cities, Americans also began to fear the implications for intergroup relations of immigrant entrepreneurs who start in the middle rather than at the bottom of the social and economic hierarchy.
Nowhere was immigrant enterprise more obvious or impressive than in Los Angeles, the world's largest Korean settlement outside of Korea and America's premier city of small business. Analyzing both the short-run and the long-run causes of Korean entrepreneurship, the authors explain why the Koreans could find, acquire, and operate small business firms more easily than could native-born residents. They also provide a context for distinguishing clashes of culture and clashes of interest which cause black-Korean tensions in cities, and for framing effective policies to minimize the tensions.