This edited volume provides an anthropological study of family businesses and business families. In previous research on family firms and business families, the comparative cross-cultural approach of anthropology has so far received little attention. As a result, family firms and business families are too often analyzed without considering cultural and kinship differences adequately. Similarly, although the topics of kinship and the economy are central to anthropological analysis, research on family firms and business families has been a marginal topic only that lacks in-depth discussions within anthropology. This volume breaks the mold by offering new empirical and theoretical insights into discussion about business families and family firms from a comparative cross-cultural perspective. It first addresses how the business family can be defined in different cultures and how kinship becomes understandable as a process and through 'doing family'. In this, the book provides a systematic comparison of the connections between family, kinship and economic activity in different cultures, whereas many of the previous studies have concentrated on only one or a few regions or cultures. It also shows the complexities and challenges when grounding the analysis of economic activity and entrepreneurship in cultural context.

Based on extensive original research at the local level, this book explores the relationship between Russian Orthodoxy and politics in contemporary Russia. It reveals close personal links between politicians at the local, regional and national levels and their counterparts at the equivalent level in the Russian Orthodox Church - priests and monks, bishops and archbishops - who are extensively consulted about political decisions. It outlines a convergence of conservative ideology between politicians and clerics and also highlights that, despite working closely together, there are nevertheless many tensions. The book examines in detail particular areas of cooperation and tension: reform to religious education and a growing emphasis on traditional moral values, the restitution of former church property and the introduction of new festive days. Overall, the book concludes that there is much uncertainty, ambiguity and great local variation.

Based on extensive original research at the local level, this book explores the relationship between Russian Orthodoxy and politics in contemporary Russia. It reveals close personal links between politicians at the local, regional and national levels and their counterparts at the equivalent level in the Russian Orthodox Church - priests and monks, bishops and archbishops - who are extensively consulted about political decisions. It outlines a convergence of conservative ideology between politicians and clerics and also highlights that, despite working closely together, there are nevertheless many tensions. The book examines in detail particular areas of cooperation and tension: reform to religious education and a growing emphasis on traditional moral values, the restitution of former church property and the introduction of new festive days. Overall, the book concludes that there is much uncertainty, ambiguity and great local variation.

This book explores the relationship between Orthodox religion and politics in Eastern Europe, Russia and Georgia. It demonstrates how as these societies undergo substantial transformation Orthodox religion can be both a limiting and an enabling factor, how the relationship between religion and politics is complex, and how the spheres of religion and politics complement, reinforce, influence, and sometimes contradict each other. Considering a range of thematic issues, with examples from a wide range of countries with significant Orthodox religious groups, and setting the present situation in its full historical context the book provides a rich picture of a subject which has been too often oversimplified.

This book explores the relationship between Orthodox religion and politics in Eastern Europe, Russia and Georgia. It demonstrates how as these societies undergo substantial transformation Orthodox religion can be both a limiting and an enabling factor, how the relationship between religion and politics is complex, and how the spheres of religion and politics complement, reinforce, influence, and sometimes contradict each other. Considering a range of thematic issues, with examples from a wide range of countries with significant Orthodox religious groups, and setting the present situation in its full historical context the book provides a rich picture of a subject which has been too often oversimplified.

The entrepreneurial family has hardly been a topic of family sociology so far. Precisely because more than two-thirds of all companies are family-run, it is surprising that sociology has not yet discovered the entrepreneurial family as a field of research. With this book, it is made the content of systematic family sociological reflections. A central point of departure for theorizing and research on entrepreneurial families is that this form of family has to deal with special social challenges because it structurally combines, mixes, and couples two social spheres that are generally pulled apart in the course of the modernization of society, namely families as part of the private life world and companies as the formal organization of the economic system.

Die Unternehmerfamilie ist bisher kaum ein Thema der Familiensoziologie. Gerade weil mehr als Zweidrittel aller Unternehmen familiengefuhrt sind, erstaunt es, dass die Soziologie die Unternehmerfamilie bisher nicht als Forschungsfeld entdeckt hat. Mit diesem Buch wird sie zum Inhalt systematischer familiensoziologischer Reflexionen gemacht. Ein zentraler Ausgangspunkt der Theoriebildung und Forschung zu Unternehmerfamilien ist, dass es diese Familienform mit besonderen sozialen Herausforderungen zu tun hat, weil sich in ihr zwei soziale Spharen strukturell verbinden, vermischen und verkoppeln, die im Zuge der Modernisierung der Gesellschaft gemeinhin auseinandergezogen werden, und zwar Familien als Teil der privaten Lebenswelt und Unternehmen als formale Organisation des Wirtschaftssystems.