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Research on immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States has focused on small businesses in the retail and food service sectors rather than on high-technology start ups. Scholarship on women and immigrants in the U.S. science and technology workforce has focused on academia rather than scientists in industry. This article aims to bridge the gaps in these two literatures by examining the role of women and immigrants in founding science-based biotechnology firms. This research thus speaks to the sociological perspective on power inequalities for women and foreign-born people in entrepreneurship and in the U.S. science and technology workforce. Opportunities and barriers vary by organizational context, and the flexibility of the biotechnology industry has previously been found to benefit female scientists. But what of foreign-born scientists and women who play founding roles in biotech firms? A survey conducted of 261 biotechnology firms located in Massachusetts and New England in 2006 provides the data. The results show that 42% of the firms had at least one foreign-born founder, and 21% of firms had at least one female founder. These numbers suggest that foreign-born life scientists are well represented and female life scientists are somewhat underrepresented in founding roles in biotech. The role of entrepreneurs who have the double status of female immigrants is less clear and needs further study. The research finds significant variation in biotech entrepreneurship of immigrants by their world region of origin. Interviews supplement the survey data to illustrate the barriers and opportunities for foreign-born biotech entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs and everyday businessmen and women have long engaged in different kinds of civic-minded activities. This study explores ways that urban entrepreneurs and managers engage in civic activities while pursuing business growth. In this preliminary analysis of owners and managers who have participated in a technical assistance program geared for entrepreneurs who are ready to take their existing venture "to the next level", we identify a kind of entrepreneur whose business model incorporates a social mission. These are not "social entrepreneurs" who engage in business practices in order to push their social agenda. Nor are they mimicking businesses that follow a "corporate social responsibility" model because they were shamed into it or believe it will be good for their bottom line. These are people whose ventures must make a profit if their social mission is to be achieved. They run what we call a "civic enterprise". Their behavior reflects a kind of "civic-minded capitalism".

The tension between one's private life and larger public obligations has been the subject of much speculation, captured powerfully in works as diverse as those of Alexis de Tocqueville and Robert Putnam. This matter is explored to an extent not previously undertaken in a study of Americans' interpersonal ties and civic attachments at the end of the 20th century. Evidence from the GSS for 1974, 1984, and 1994 suggests that a person's gender, race, age, education, occupation, and mobility became a little more strongly associated with the way one socialized informally and less strongly associated with the kinds of organizations one joined. Regardless of where they live or what generation they came from, Americans have managed the tension between their private lives and broader public duties better and more creatively than we could have imagined.