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Ann Mari Sellerberg

Ann Mari Sellerberg

Professor emerita

Ann Mari Sellerberg

'Family money' and 'business money': bankrupt entrepreneurs in a ‘question situation’

Author

  • Ann Mari Sellerberg

Summary, in English

This paper addresses the question of bankruptcy and honesty in local contexts, and especially the problem of the bankrupt small businessman in conveying ‘honesty’ to the local community. Studying bankrupt entrepreneurs, the analysis explores a tacit dialogue between the failed businessmen and the small town communities where they live and work. The bankrupts respond to their seemingly mistrustful surroundings by demonstrating their respect for the dividing line between two social categories of money: ‘company money’ and ‘family money’. This discursive resource expresses business ethics and respectability, both essential for the bankrupt entrepreneur to start another business in the local community.



The empirical material in the study consists of interviews with twenty-two businessmen who had created small businesses and experienced at least one bankruptcy, half of them in small towns. The entrepreneurs were found through court records and word-of-mouth. Interviews were conducted by the author and by graduate students from the Department of Sociology in Lund. All interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim.

Department/s

  • Sociology

Publishing year

2009

Language

English

Publication/Series

Community, Work and Family

Volume

12

Issue

4

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)

Keywords

  • respectability
  • bankruptcy
  • account
  • expression
  • money
  • honesty
  • trust
  • sociology
  • sociologi

Status

Inpress

Research group

  • Sociology of Everyday Life

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1366-8803