This book considers how small businesses stir up changes in social relationships and what these changes mean for wider society. From this emerges a challenging and provocative discussion on the problems facing both the developing and developed worlds. Development, it argues, is written into social relationships and growth follows attempts to avoid the market's degenerative effects. What this discussion means for development practice, and for thought in the social sciences more generally, is also considered. If there is a watchword for development practice, then it is acceptance acceptance of more social, less prescriptive, and far more experimental modes of working. As for the implications of these ideas for social science, these may be described well enough as an economy of ontology.

This book sets out a fresh and original understanding of the social importance of small businesses and of development and growth

Provides a challenging and stimulating debate on the problems facing developed as well as developing societies

Provides detail on behavior in small businesses in China and the Philippines

Inhalt
Chapter1. Emotion, Organization, and Society.- Chapter2. Informality and Formality.- Chapter3. Patronage.- Chapter4. Emotional States.- Chapter5. Firm, Market, and Organization.- Chapter6. Big Societies: China and the Philippines.- Chapter7. From Family to Business.- Chapter8. Happenstance.- Chapter9. Looking for Solace.- Chapter10. Being Direct.