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AbstractThis article studies how perceptions of the risks associated with informal self‐employment depend on the interplay between the institutional, structural (network) and cultural embeddedness of economic action. Informal self‐employment should create at least three types of risk. The first concerns the possible legal and social sanctions that stem from the illegal character of the entrepreneurial action. The second is related to the complete lack of social security protection among those for whom informal self‐employment is their sole employment. The third is connected with the lack of guarantees concerning contract enforcement, which may increase the probability of opportunistic behaviour by business partners and clients. On the basis of a qualitative study of young, highly educated, informally self‐employed workers in Bulgaria's capital Sofia, I argue that these risks are compensated by the specific network and cultural embeddedness of the economic action. This compensation takes the form of various types of insurance against risks. Its core is the replacement of the vacuum of institutional‐system trust with interpersonal trust. Thus, the specific constellation of institutional, network and cultural embeddedness is able to solve the problem of opportunism, as well as to create the perception that the informally self‐employed are faced with not much greater risks than registered self‐employed workers.

Der Beitrag rekonstruiert die Entwicklung der industriellen Beziehungen in Bulgarien seit dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs. Unter dem kommunistischen Regime bis 1990 konnten die industriellen Beziehungen als eine Form der Bürokratie bezeichnet werden. Dies folgte aus der unbegrenzten Macht des Parteiapparats. Deswegen sind die Bulgaren seit der Wende skeptisch gegenüber jeder Form von bürokratischer Organisation, inklusive der Gewerkschaften. Die Erstarrung aller gesellschaftlichen Bereiche im Staatssozialismus führte auch letztendlich zum Zusammenbruch des Systems. Heute folgen die industriellen Beziehungen einem neoliberalen Modell, in dem jedoch der Staat wegen der Schwäche der Arbeitgeber und Arbeitnehmer der führende Akteur ist. Vor allem die Gewerkschaften leiden unter dem Verlust an Arbeitsmotivation unter den Bedingungen einer wachsenden Armut und Arbeitslosigkeit. Es erfordert noch viel Zeit, diesen anomischen Zustand zu überwinden. (ICA)

This research by social scientists from Bulgaria, Germany and Taiwan started with the question of how a comparison of the institutional cultures of these three countries could be done. 'Institutional culture', here, refers to the traditions of society as well as to the values of particular institutions. The authors attempt an answer by exploring problems of cultural comparison, by describing the research process as a meeting of cultures, by developing an agreed upon conceptual framework to orient the analysis. They exemplify their approach in comparable descriptions of the core cultures and of the related economic-political exchange cultures of the three countries. This allows a contrast between the institutional cultures of different 'civilizations', and the authors provide a matrix of traditions and exchange patterns for empirical research on particular economic phenomena. The data basis is literature at hand on the history of mentality as well as on the history and sociology of societies and institutions. The research was carried out in 1997/8.