Suchergebnisse

Chapter 1 Studying Entrepreneurship Policies in European Cities -- Chapter 2 "This is like a big transatlantic liner". Contingent Converging Trends -- Chapter 3 Inclusive Entrepreneurship Policies. Reproducing Heterogeneity, Negotiating Ambivalence -- Chapter 4 "The mindset has changed a lot". Situated Agency of Youth Entrepreneurs -- Chapter 5 Differentiated Inclusion.

L'articolo analizza le esperienze di giovani beneficiari di misure a sostegno dell'imprenditorialità del Comune di Milano. Lo scopo del contributo è di esaminare come, e a quali condizioni, motivazioni e spinte differenti all'avvio di impresa possono combinarsi. A partire dai risultati di una ricerca qualitativa, condotta con interviste semi-strutturate a giovani e attori di policy, lo studio mette in luce il pluralismo delle motivazioni e dei fattori che contribuiscono ad informare le strategie imprenditoriali dei giovani intervistati. Inoltre, evidenzia la rilevanza delle politiche urbane e delle condizioni sociali, economiche e istituzionali a fronte delle quali questo pluralismo prende forma.

Using Milan's entrepreneurship policies as a case-study, this paper explores the diversity that the broad policy category of 'inclusive entrepreneurship' may entail in terms of policy instruments and participants' experiences. To this end, the study considers policymakers, practitioners and young adults receiving local support to establish their own businesses. It does so by drawing on qualitative interviews. It argues that inclusive entrepreneurship policies may entail a 'differentiated inclusion' that is produced by the simultaneous interaction between diversified policy instruments and a system of inequalities that affect individual capacities to strategise entrepreneurial risks and opportunities.

The thesis is framed in the disciplinary field of urban sociology and aims to analyse municipal entrepreneurship support policies promoted by the cities of Milan (Italy) and Barcelona (Spain), with a focus on the experiences of young people up to the age of thirty-five who have benefited from the different measures during the years 2012 to 2016. The concept of entrepreneurship, explicitly and sometimes implicitly accompanied by that of self-employment, is central in many policy agendas at many levels of government. In Europe, indeed, the growing concern about the persistence of high levels of unemployment, especially among young people, combined with the consolidation of activation as a paradigm in the reorientation of public actions for social inclusion, have made entrepreneurship a key instrument not only for economic development strategies, but also for activation policies (inclusive entrepreneurship). At the local level, European cities are particularly active in supporting inclusive entrepreneurship, being also able to count on the fact that new economic opportunities have found fertile ground in urban contexts, driven primarily by the growth of the service sector and a distinctive capacity for innovation. However, despite its relevance, this issue has been scantly addressed in the literature. In this context, the thesis proposes an interpretative framework for exploring this object of study that incorporates, on the one hand, neo-Marxist-inspired and neo-Weberian approaches to urban policy and governance and, on the other hand, the socio-economic literature and theoretically relevant institutional documentation on entrepreneurship, including within the framework of studies on the reorganization of the welfare state. The critical reading of the reference literature has led to two analytical macro-approaches. The first highlights the thesis of the convergence of urban policies towards neoliberal modes of governance, and welfare models based on market needs and competitiveness instead of social cohesion. A ...

[eng] The thesis is framed in the disciplinary field of urban sociology and aims to analyse municipal entrepreneurship support policies promoted by the cities of Milan (Italy) and Barcelona (Spain), with a focus on the experiences of young people up to the age of thirty-five who have benefited from the different measures during the years 2012 to 2016. The concept of entrepreneurship, explicitly and sometimes implicitly accompanied by that of self-employment, is central in many policy agendas at many levels of government. In Europe, indeed, the growing concern about the persistence of high levels of unemployment, especially among young people, combined with the consolidation of activation as a paradigm in the reorientation of public actions for social inclusion, have made entrepreneurship a key instrument not only for economic development strategies, but also for activation policies (inclusive entrepreneurship). At the local level, European cities are particularly active in supporting inclusive entrepreneurship, being also able to count on the fact that new economic opportunities have found fertile ground in urban contexts, driven primarily by the growth of the service sector and a distinctive capacity for innovation. However, despite its relevance, this issue has been scantly addressed in the literature. In this context, the thesis proposes an interpretative framework for exploring this object of study that incorporates, on the one hand, neo-Marxist-inspired and neo-Weberian approaches to urban policy and governance and, on the other hand, the socio-economic literature and theoretically relevant institutional documentation on entrepreneurship, including within the framework of studies on the reorganization of the welfare state. The critical reading of the reference literature has led to two analytical macro-approaches. The first highlights the thesis of the convergence of urban policies towards neoliberal modes of governance, and welfare models based on market needs and competitiveness instead of social cohesion. A trend that entrepreneurship support policies seem to exemplify. The second highlights the peculiarities of the European city, identified with the resistance of the compromise between growth and social inclusion objectives, and supports the opposite thesis of the divergence between cities, the relevance of the political dimension and the local policy actors. Within this framework, the research has focused on how local political actors interpret, invalidate or reproduce the mainstream approach to entrepreneurship support policies and the role played in this respect by institutional factors and political aspects. Besides, the investigation included the analysis of the implications in terms of redistribution of risks and opportunities among the young people interviewed. To this ends, the research has availed itself of a qualitative methodology, case-based comparative analysis and the technique of the interview. The study revealed the heterogeneity of municipal entrepreneurship support policies concerning ideas and values, objectives, measures and tools, as well as the experiences of the young beneficiaries. Finally, the thesis highlights how policy orientations, local political paradigms, institutional legacies and governance arrangements interact to shape specific and different approaches to entrepreneurship support policies in the two cities, and how these influence the capacity to govern socio-economic changes.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore two financial inclusion measures adopted within the local welfare context of the city of Milan, Italy, examining their functioning and underpinning representations. The aim is also to understand how such representations take concrete shape in the practices of local actors, and their implications for the opportunities and constraints regarding individuals' effective inclusion. To this end, this paper takes a wide-ranging look at the interplay between the rise of financial inclusion and the individualisation and responsibilisation models informing welfare policies, within the broader context of financialisation processes overall.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on the sociology of public action approach and provides a qualitative analysis of two case studies, a social microcredit service and a financial education programme, based on direct observation and semi-structured interviews conducted with key policy actors.FindingsThis paper sheds light on the rationale behind two financial inclusion services and illustrates how the instruments involved incorporate and tend to reproduce, individualising logics that reduce the problem of financial exclusion, and the social and economic vulnerability which underlies it, to a matter of personal responsibility, thus fuelling depoliticising tendencies in public action. It also discusses the contradictions underlying financial inclusion instruments, showing how local actors negotiate views and strategies on the problems to be addressed.Originality/valueThe paper makes an original contribution to the field of sociology and social policy by focusing on two under-researched instruments of financial inclusion and improving understanding of the finance-welfare state nexus and of the contradictions underpinning attempts at financial inclusion of the most vulnerable.

This article focuses on financial education with the aim to explore the relationship between finance, welfare policies and the governance of uncertainties and risks also in the light of the Covid-19 pandemic. The article discusses the normative substratum that lies at the intersection of daily life and changes in the institutional and regulatory structures of welfare policies. In doing so, it shows how financial education turns protection from critical events, including pandemics, into a financial skills issue that vulnerable individuals and families must address through individual and financialised coping strategies, without broader social factors and contexts of vulnerability being taken into account and addressed. Finally, it points out that the pandemic situation does not seem to be a factor of discontinuity in this respect. Rather, the pandemic emergency appears to be used to support the further development of long-term trends, particularly processes of depoliticization and individualisation.