Women’s entrepreneurship in Russia: impacts from the Soviet system

Abstract

Purpose – This paper aims to analyze how surviving norms from the Soviet time continue to shape women’s entrepreneurship in contemporary Russia. Design/methodology/approach – The empirical data are based on observations and qualitative interviews in two Russian regions in 2002-2014 and also to a part on a survey from one of the regions. The analytical framework is based on Douglass North’s (1990) categorization of four main kinds of institutions which influence the way a society develops: legal rules, organization forms, enforcement and behavioural norms. Findings – The analysis shows that it is important to incorporate norms connected to women’s societal roles to the institutional theory. The survival of norms might in fact imply that women’s entrepreneurship tends to conserve the ways the system works, rather than to contributing to changing it. Although the survival of such norms tends to prevent changes, the possibility to start private businesses, on the other hand, opened up new ways for women to fulfill their different societal responsibilities. Originality/value – The paper is based on unique empirical data including some 200 interviews and observations from regular field trips to villages and small towns in Russia since the early 2000s.

The Politics of Poverty in Contemporary Russia

“…A few studies suggest that the survival of a collective spirit (Shanin 1999) or the paternalistic behaviour of employers (Granberg 2007) can facilitate everyday life. Others argue that Soviet norms such as personal connections (blat) (Ledeneva 1998(Ledeneva , 2008 and inter-family networks can help people to combat or cope with poverty (Desai and Idson 1998;Ioffe and Nefedova 1997;Salmi 2006;Shubin 2007) and possibly also contribute to entrepreneurship as a tool for change (Sätre 2010(Sätre , 2016. There is also a debate related to surviving norms as to whether the reforms have led to increased activities in the informal economy (Ellman 2000;Kim 2002).…”

“…In the 1990s when everybody was poor, it was considered legitimate to be poor. However, the mass unemployment that some researchers waited for did not emerge, soft budgets continued to be a practice and over-employment remained an accepted practice in both state institu tions and private firms (see Sätre 2016). In addition, attitudes changed back to ear lier ones.…”