From barriers to barring: Why emotion matters for entrepreneurial development

Barriers as objective obstacles

In the entrepreneurship literature barriers are commonly defined as those factors or conditions that constrain entrepreneurial behaviour (Kouriloff, 2000) or the antecedents of such (Krueger and Brazeal, 1994). These have been attributed ‘internally’ to characteristics of the entrepreneur or scale of the firm or ‘externally’ to structural/environmental influences (Carroll and Hannan, 2000; Dyke et al., 1992; Kolvereid and Bullvåg, 1996; Rauch et al., 2005; Smallbone and Wyer, 2006). Although Krueger (2003) has noted that while barriers can have both internal and external dimensions (an internal barrier to capital might be ‘I can’t find money’, while viewed externally it might be that that lending has ‘dried up’; p. 4), most studies tend to focus on the latter, perhaps because external barriers are more easily operationalized, identifiable, and are, therefore, expected to be amenable to policy interventions. Such barriers are seen as a deterrent to starting a business (Kouriloff, 2000; Krueger and Brazeal, 1994), being innovative (Hadjimanolis, 1999; McAdamet al., 2004) and/or growing a business (Barber et al., 1989; Davidsson et al., 2004; Moy and Luk, 2003; Storey, 1994) by those that might be otherwise inclined.

It has been argued that a distinguishing feature of this research is the emphasis on classification, on identifying specific barriers and mapping the extent of their presence (Barth, 2004; Doern 2011, 2009; Storey, 1994). Consequently there is a methodological reliance in previous studies on cross-sectional designs, large-scale surveys and structured questionnaires in which entrepreneurs are presented with lists of predetermined barriers (e.g. lack of access to capital, too much bureaucracy, high competition, low skilled labour) and asked to rate each according to perceived importance (e.g. Bartlett and Bukvić, 2001; Belso Martinez, 2009; Pissarides et al., 2003; Robson and Obeng, 2007). Unsurprisingly, results across different studies tend to be inconsistent (Curran and Blackburn, 2001; Doern, 2009; Freel, 2000; Sarasvathy, 2004). In short, most conventional studies have focused on the barrier qua ‘objective obstacle’ rather than the conditions that give rise to it or the ways in which it is perceived (see Parry, 2010, for an exception).

Broadening this focus is important because studies of entrepreneurial cognition have shown that perceptual/cognitive biases can produce significant variations in opportunity awareness and motivation. Such work suggests that it would be unwise to consider barriers to entrepreneurship independently of the ways in which they are perceived. Luthans et al. (2000) point to social cognition as a key way in which entrepreneurs in transition economies reconcile the tensions between environmental factors and previous entrepreneurial behaviours and, thereby, influence their response to barriers. Similarly, when we look beyond the simple label that is attached to a barrier (e.g. too much bureaucracy, lack of access to capital), it becomes readily apparent that many such barriers are strongly social. They will often involve one individual or group (who controls some necessary resource) determining, by a variety of means, which other individuals or groups will be allowed access to such resources and on what terms. Such decisions are frequently based on implicit or explicit judgements about social worth which, in turn, reflect the distribution of power within social situations (Collins, 2004; Summers-Effler, 2002). Thus, although they have not conventionally been considered within the barrier literature, there are numerous studies that point to the significance of such social barriers for entrepreneurship. These include (but are not restricted to) forms of social exclusion (Haugh, 2005), acts of discrimination (Faegin and Imani, 1994; Fielden and Dawe, 2004; Fischer et al., 1993), corrupt practices relating to entry or growth (Dreher and Gassebner, 2007; Tonoyan, 2003), and conflicts of interpersonal relationships (e.g. between business partners or within families; Kellermanns and Edelston, 2004, 2007). The diverse activities encompassed by these themes have all been shown to have significant implications for entrepreneurship, but neither in the studies themselves nor in the wider literature has concerted attention been given to the conceptualization of how such processes operate to facilitate or impede entrepreneurial action. While some studies conducted in transition economies have analyzed the impact of barriers on entrepreneurial action (Feige, 1997; Hendley et al., 2000; Lynn, 1998; Manolova and Yan, 2002; Peng, 2003; Welter and Smallbone, 2011), very few, if any, have analyzed such barriers as processes or as explicitly involving power relations.

Barriers as socio-emotional processes

The literature on barriers to entrepreneurship, then, appears to be of limited use in addressing issues of process and power. To provide a more fruitful way to address these issues we turn to the field of micro-sociology ¹ and, in particular the works of Collins (1981, 2004), Summers-Effler (2002) and Scheff (1990, 1997, 2000). This perspective has been used to demonstrate the operation of power and resistance within entrepreneurial ventures and to map the ways in which social context shapes individual entrepreneurial action (Goss, 2007). We extend this work to provide a conceptualization of barriers. We begin with the notion of power rituals (Collins, 2004) which are closely aligned to the sorts of political encounters between entrepreneurs and state officials identified as barriers to entrepreneurship in transition economies (see further below). By elaborating this construct we hope to provide a novel way to explore the operation of barriers to entrepreneurial action.

Collins’s interaction ritual chain theory (1981, 2004) postulates social order ² as the outcome of an ongoing stream of ritual interactions. Rituals involve four ingredients: the physical co-presence of two or more actors; barriers to outsiders (i.e. an awareness that participants are members of a specific activity); a common focus of attention on the activity in question; and a shared mood. When successful, these translate into the outcomes of collective solidarity, individual emotional energy, group symbols and standards of morality (see Collins, 2004; Goss, 2010 for a summary). Not all rituals are successful for all participants and differing combinations of ingredients may translate into different outcomes for participants (discussed below).

The underpinning assumption is that significant emotions are generated by such interaction rituals (Fessler, 2007), captured in Collins’s (1981) notion of ‘emotional energy’: a long-term emotional tone ranging from an up tone of excitement and happiness to a down tone of depression and sadness (p. 1001). For Collins (2004) emotional energy is a crucial ritual outcome as it provides the basis for individual motivation: it stimulates ‘not just … physical activity … but above all, taking the initiative in social interaction, putting enthusiasm into it, taking the lead in setting the level of emotional entrainment’ (p. 107).

However, in some ritual situations the distribution of emotional energy is unequal, with some participants experiencing gains at the expense of others’ losses. Usually those who dominate the ritual gain emotional energy and those who are subordinate, lose. These are what Collins refers to as power rituals. We will suggest that power rituals can act as the basis for potent barriers to entrepreneurial action by sapping emotional energy and encouraging inertia. Schumpeter (1934; Goss, 2005) and Shapero (1984) also identified human inertia as a barrier to entrepreneurial behaviour – power rituals may help to explain how this inertia is produced and reproduced.

A power ritual is an encounter where (at least) two parties engage in order to secure control over some resource and where, ultimately, one party is confirmed as an order-giver, the other(s) as an order-taker. Where order-givers are perceived to hold legitimate authority by order-takers, the ritual may generate positive outcomes. But where legitimacy is lacking, power rituals tend to reduce emotional energy and engender inertia, which leads to the maintenance of subordinate positioning (Summers-Effler, 2002). Here the unequal parties are likely to meet under constrained conditions, i.e. where order-givers can demand the participation of the order-takers and where there is no pre-existing basis for trust between them. In such circumstances, ‘the situation of taking orders, of being coerced, is in itself alienating’ (Collins, 2004: 112). Thus, order-givers generally maintain or increase their levels of emotional energy at the expense of order-takers’ loss. This loss is especially acute, maintains Collins, when the power ritual does not bring about solidarity, i.e. when subordinate parties do not wish voluntarily to repeat the encounter, but know they will be coerced into doing so (2004: 114; Summers-Effler, 2002).

Although the notion of emotional energy is central to Collins’s theory, there is, as yet, no agreed or easily operationalized method for its empirical identification. ³ To overcome this limitation we develop the suggestion that ‘measures of pride and shame can be useful measures of high and low emotional energy’ respectively (Collins, 2004: 120). Shame, therefore, is of particular interest to our discussion of power rituals as barriers.

Shame is a social emotion (Cooley, 1922) implicated in maintaining and threatening social relationships (Scheff and Retzinger, 1991). It is seen to arise where valued relationships are threatened and signals the need for individuals to evaluate the quality of their interactions (Fearon, 2004). Shame is thus experienced in response to ‘threats to the social self’ associated with experiences of embarrassment, inadequacy, vulnerability, isolation, rejection and failure (Scheff, 2000). Anger and fear are not uniquely social but their emergence in response to social threats (Fearon, 2004) has been argued to often be a consequence of a prior sense of shame (Lewis, 1971).

Shame has been associated with adaptive ‘submission and appeasement behaviors’ (Gruenewald et al., 2007: 73). In social animals such behaviours have been used to indicate social positioning and dominance (Fessler, 2007), making it relevant to the notion of power rituals. It will be recalled that power rituals were claimed to be alienating when order-givers lacked legitimacy in the eyes of coerced order-takers. Here it is useful to draw on the distinction between acknowledged and unacknowledged shame (Lewis, 1971; Scheff, 1990). Both are induced by a perceived awareness of others’ disapproval but in the former case there is a recognition of the (witting or unwitting) transgression that prompts attempts to make amends – to repair the fractured bond and thereby discharge the emotional pain. Unacknowledged shame, in contrast, is associated with disapproval that is perceived as unfairly attributed. The hurt of shame is experienced but it is difficult or impossible to acknowledge this as a failing of the self (which would provide a basis for reparation). Rather the pain is transformed into anger – either humiliated fury directed at the offending party (sometimes openly but often ‘behind their back’) or helpless anger, directed at the self (e.g. for feeling unable to confront the offending party; Scheff, 1990). Even though an individual may not label such a reaction as shame, its close association with a denial of deference in a social relationship marks this as the root emotion (Lewis, 1971; Scheff, 1990). Involuntary or coerced consignment to the position of order-taker within a power ritual is likely to induce unacknowledged shame – especially if there is no way to escape this position (one is painfully aware of the other’s situational dominance and one’s own lack of significance in their eyes; Katz, 1999). Whether this shame is experienced as humiliated fury or helpless anger, it can be equated to a loss of emotional energy: motivation is impaired because attention and effort are absorbed by intra-psychic conflict as the individual ‘replays’ the actions and responsibilities they associate with the painful emotional state, rather than being channelled into purposeful action (Summers-Effler, 2002).

Our contention is that a recognition of the socio-emotional dynamics of power rituals is necessary for an understanding of how social barriers emerge. For the reasons outlined above, under conditions where entrepreneurs are compelled to participate in power rituals as order-takers, we would expect to see a limiting effect on entrepreneurial agency. In the next section we introduce data from a study of entrepreneurs in Russia to support this conjecture. As we stated in our Introduction, Russia’s recent history of official ambivalence and even hostility towards small-scale entrepreneurship provides an unconventional but highly appropriate research context within which to explore novel constructs (Bamberger and Pratt, 2010; Goffman, 1961; Yin 2003).

The research context

Russia is regarded as a transition economy. ⁴ In this sense the country has, since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, moved away from state-controlled, central economic planning, towards private sector ownership, market liberalization, and the creation of market-based institutions (Kolodko, 2000; Smallbone and Welter, 2009). However, because institution building (as it involves the development of financial, legal and regulatory institutions) is ongoing and remains underdeveloped (Estrin and Mickiewicz, 2010; Puffer et al., 2009), this provides an interesting setting in which to examine barriers to entrepreneurship. In particular, several studies conducted in Russia on entrepreneurship and small business development have identified specific institutional barriers to entrepreneurial behaviour that we contend are uniquely social in nature, involving interactions between entrepreneurs and state officials; they include but are not limited to a lack of transparency in legislation, the high volume of and frequent changes in legislation (Balcerowiczet al., 1999), high taxation (Aidis and Mickiewicz, 2004; Barkhatova, 2000; Bartlett and Rangelova, 1997; Bohatá and Mládek, 1999; Dadashev et al., 2003; Danis and Shipilov, 2002; Shama, 2001), frequent inspections by different state agencies, ⁵ bureaucracy and bribe taking by officials (Aidis et al., 2008; CEFIR, 2005; Frye and Shleifer, 1997; Kuznetsov and Kuzentsova, 2003; Yakovlev, 2006; Zamulin, 2004). These institutional barriers, in conjunction with a general disregard for/suspicion of small businesses by the government historically (Chepurenko and Vilensky, 1996) in favour of larger enterprises (Kihlgren, 2003; Randall, 2001), might explain in part why entrepreneurial activity in the country is limited (Estrin et al., 2006; Kihlgren, 2002, 2003; McMillan and Woodruff, 2002; OECD, 2009; Polonsky, 1998; Seawright et al., 2008) and has neglected to fulfil its potential (Acs and Audretsch, 1993; Johnson and Loveman, 1995).

Data collection

Whereas previous research has focused on barriers qua ‘objective obstacles’ and the identification of such through large-scale surveys mainly, we relied on qualitative interviews to explore and develop the provisional constructs outlined above, moving towards a model of the processes involved in understanding social barriers. The data is drawn from a set of 25 semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs in St. Petersburg (the largest city in Russia after Moscow) between June and July 2005. ⁶ All interviews were conducted by the first author and lasted 1.5 hours on average; 14 were conducted in both Russian and English; 11 were conducted in English only. An interpreter was present for all of the interviews where Russian was spoken. To reduce the likelihood of paraphrasing, the interpreter was instructed to translate in small chunks, pausing after every two to three sentences (Rogers, 1997). Further, during four separate intervals spanning the data collection process, portions of transcribed interviews (accompanied by the actual recording) were reviewed by a third party, an experienced translator, fluent in Russian and English. This was intended to check the quality of the translations. Translation checks have been utilized by other researchers engaged in cross-cultural interviewing (e.g. Bragason, 1997; Rogers, 1997).

During interviews entrepreneurs were asked to reflect on their growth aspirations, experiences of growth and on barriers to growth. This approach runs the risk of fundamental attribution error: participants offer accounts of past actions or future intentions in terms that protect their self-image as entrepreneurs rather than recounting actual events (usually attributing problems and barriers to the actions of others rather than to their own shortcomings; Ross, 1977). Although such biases cannot be ruled out completely, we believe that the detailed nature of the interviews, in particular, the opportunity for participants to recount their experiences in depth, and for the interviewer to probe responses, meant that a wholly artificial story would be difficult to sustain across the wide-ranging interview. Indeed, one striking feature was the extent to which participants did provide accounts that made explicit their own mistakes and perceived failings. In all cases, they spoke in depth about their experiences and aspirations, often in very personal and candid ways. If these were cases of retrospective sense-making, they were far from polished performances, giving us some confidence that these answers were not merely safe responses elicited by the structure of the questioning. The intensity with which participants talked about these events and their unprompted recall of distinct behavioural effects, suggest that this was more than a simple opportunity to complain.

While this study was not explicitly focused on power or emotion, it became apparent from the interviews that discussions of entrepreneurial development were permeated by concerns about relations with state officials and authorities (evident in the accounts of two-thirds of the participants), often expressed in strong emotional terms, and with frequent references to the detrimental effects of these encounters upon entrepreneurial ambition. As we will try to show below, this data allows us to elaborate a conception of barriers to entrepreneurship framed in terms of power rituals, pointing towards a provisional conceptual model of the processes involved. To this end interview transcripts were examined with three areas of exploration in mind, derived from the literature (themes for each are provided in parentheses):

In relation to (b), shame has been shown to be identifiable from data such as interview transcripts (Katz, 1999; Scheff, 1990, 1997; Tracy et al., 2007). Its presence has been inferred from accounts of scenarios in which participants ‘describe problems with social relationships [whilst] … simultaneously … presenting a negative impression of themselves to the interviewer’. This is often accompanied by ‘immediately reformulating their references to the relationship such that it appears less problematic’ (Fearon, 2004: 64). It has also been associated with verbal fillers or pauses (around sensitive topics), laughter (giggling, nervous or tense laughter), and certain gestures (blushing, hiding behaviours, fidgeting) (Lewis, 1971; Scheff, 1990). We examined transcripts (which included notes and memos identifying pauses, hesitations and other utterances) for indications of shame ‘episodes’ and the presence of words and phrases commonly associated with the emotion (e.g. wanting to disappear/hide, expressions of inferiority, being taken for granted, overlooked or belittled; Scheff, 1990).

Both authors independently read the transcripts and highlighted what they thought to be relevant extracts. In general there was a high level of agreement; mismatched cases were discussed (by the authors) and either excluded or allocated on the basis of a consensus decision. Taken together, each of these three areas and their related themes help us to understand how social barriers to entrepreneurial action emerge.

A. Russian entrepreneurs and power rituals

In their accounts of interactions with state officials, most of the entrepreneurs gave clear indications that these meetings took place within a context of unequal resources where they had little scope to influence the outcome and had little trust in the motives of the other party. A common concern was the need to participate in inspection visits which, for most, seemed little more than a protection racket. For example, since doubling his employee numbers and moving into a larger office space (owned by the state), one entrepreneur (OM15), complained that his business had undergone 43 inspections (over the last year and a half) from various state departments including health and safety, sanitation, the fire brigade and police. ‘All of them [inspections] have to be paid for’, he explained. ‘And I don’t even know when this will finish actually.’ When asked how much he paid for each inspection, he replied, ‘the services of [the] health and safety [inspectors] cost 800 dollars. And you have to know that neither their services nor the services of the others do anything.’ This requirement to buy unneeded services was noted by other entrepreneurs as well:

There is some law that says you must put some asphalt on the driveway. …they [the state] will press on you as long as you don’t do it. It plays no role. It’s just a law and you have to do it. If you have money they will do everything to get the money away from you (he giggles ⁸ ). (OM19)

From several accounts it became clear that there was relatively little doubt about which party was the order-giver and which was expected to comply. Several participants spoke of their fear in the face of inspections. For instance, when tax inspectors called one entrepreneur in to their offices he recalled, ‘[I had to] change my [under]pants’ (OM23), whilst another hinted at what might happen if he went on to develop the business and the various inspectors were not kept happy: ‘[There are] too many inspectors. I don’t want to do big business in Russia. … It’s too dangerous’ (OM2). There was also a recognition of the arbitrariness of the officials’ power over them during inspections: ‘they will find something [during inspections] which is not clean, if they want’ (OM14). Several reported being fined (fines often amounted to little more than bribes) for a supposed lack of compliance with legislation (which appeared to be subject to arbitrary interpretation; the discretionary nature of the actions of officials has been noted by others, e.g. Manolova and Yan, 2002):

The tax police they said we made one thing [that was not in keeping with the law] not according to the law, but we showed them we are making it according to the law and according to one law it is good, but according to another it is not very good. So they are making large penalties for us. (OM18)

In concluding this account the participant emphasized the relative powerlessness of the entrepreneur against the bureaucrat: ‘We said that we will go to [a] judge, but in fact it is very expensive, for example, for us to take [this case] to a lawyer … it was very hard to pay all the penalties.’ This sense of powerlessness was found elsewhere:

They [inspections] waste our time. They demand our attention. So naturally they interfere. … the whole system is not [designed] to help but to draw money from businessmen. (OM15)

These bureaucrats they need money, they need cash. It’s like oxygen. Otherwise they wouldn’t exist. So you pay this and this and this. So the costs of running the business are extremely high. (OM4)

It seems, from the results presented here, that bureaucrats in Russia were, as Frye and Shleifer (1997) have maintained, able to take advantage of institutional inefficiencies such as unclear legislation to impose their own ‘predatory regulations’ on these small businesses, making them, effectively, ‘above the law’ (p. 355; see also Infante and Smirnova, 2009; Kuznetsov and Kuznetsova, 2003). This behaviour had the effect of draining from the entrepreneurs’ vital resources (emotional and material) that could otherwise be invested in the business, as the following extract shows:

I have to lie to try to get out of it all the time [to get out of inspections carried out by state officials] … I always try to get out of it … So I always have to expend energy by trying to get around these governmental controls [inspections]. And much energy is expended on this. If there was less bureaucracy of course we would give this energy to something else. (OM17)

The animosity entrepreneurs expressed towards officials seemed to result from the latters’ perceived corruption, but was also fuelled by a sense of being treated as insignificant and unworthy of serious consideration. The impersonal they occurred frequently in these accounts, seeming to emphasize separation and distance: ⁹

So, the normal way is not working in this country. They are too busy with their backchannels all the time. They don’t have time to do their proper job. They’re busy taking bribes and solving problems for their friends and colleagues and relatives. They don’t have time to deal with normal citizens. They don’t have time for that. (OM4)

There was a deep dissatisfaction with these interactions with officials. A number of participants stated that they would prefer not to engage with officials at all and wished to be left alone to develop their businesses (‘we don’t need any help [from the state] and the biggest thing is that they don’t interfere with our work. We will find the things we need ourselves’, OM12) but seemed unable to conceive of a way in which this might realistically be possible. These accounts suggest both the entrepreneurs’ sense of relative powerlessness in the face of officialdom and their feelings of being in opposition to its values, values that are perceived as taking no account of the value of their businesses. One participant vented her frustration: ‘You see those three rubles we have on the side? We are investing them into something new. And we are doing this, not the government of our city’ (OM5). Another said:

We don’t believe in it [the state] … all of the time we are trying to cope, trying to adjust to what is going on. So the thing is that wealth of the people, of citizens, [is] absolutely not the same as the wealth of the state in Russia, so everything that, quite a lot of things that, seem to be illegal in the West, [is] just the only chance [we have] to survive here … So it seems that however much money we give [to the state] it seems to get vaporized somewhere and for me it seems absolutely clear that this must be bureaucracy. (OM11)

It seems, therefore, that these accounts give at least plausible grounds for asserting that, in their dealings with state officials, Russian entrepreneurs may find themselves involved in encounters that closely resemble Collins’s notion of a power ritual. Because of their control of resources (permits, inspections, certificates), officials can confront small-scale entrepreneurs as order-givers, casting the latter, unwillingly, in the role of order-takers (this is especially potent in societies such as Russia where there is limited access to formal channels of appeal against such authority and where bribery and corruption are rife; that is, courts are perceived to be costly, ineffective, biased and corrupt institutions – see Hendley, 2000; Radaev, 2004; Tonoyan et al., 2010). We now examine the extent to which participants’ accounts of their encounters with state officials were regarded to be problematic and led to feelings of shame.

B. Entrepreneurs’ emotional responses to power rituals

Interactions with state officials were evaluated quite negatively by entrepreneurs and accounts yielded evidence of unacknowledged shame (like Collins, we use shame as a proxy for emotional energy) – i.e. the actions of state officials were regarded to be unfair and the hurt and anger experienced were not, in turn, attributed to the failing of the self. This took the form of humiliated fury (again, when anger is directed at the other) and helpless anger (when anger is directed at the self because the other cannot be confronted). In the former case, one participant complained about his troubles with the state electricity provider in particular and state officials more generally. We provide a lengthy extract in this case to demonstrate the ways in which we identified the presence of shame-related emotions from our data:

I can tell you we have, at the moment we have an issue with the local administration for electricity in the region … they cut down the amount of kilowatts we need, which is actually below our mean which we cannot take. And then they basically told us they will cut off the electricity altogether and they will kick us out altogether because we do not have any license for this. We are here illegally etc etc. So basically they just want money … we rent from the city, official rent, and we pay officially. The contract is here. The fire brigade is very important. We have an installation for fire security and we have had everything checked by the fire inspectors … it is important that it is approved. The paper is here. ‘What do you want?’ When they attack you, they attack you always on formalities. They know that their rules are so stupidly difficult that nobody will follow them. And they will be trying to have a short cut … they are not interested in having you follow the rules. They are more interested in having you on the hook and getting the payments [bribes]. The bureaucrats are not in favour of you following the rules at all. They are not in favour. Nobody will say ‘thank you’… Nobody. They are much more interested in having you on the hook just in case and coming in and catching you. When tax inspection comes in they know upfront that nobody can pay their taxes and their weak points will be here and here and here. So the approach of the bureaucrats is to have you on the hook at all times. That’s how this country works …. (OM4)

Here, there are explicit expressions of anger captured both in the words and the tone (noted in italics) that are suggestive of fury. We infer the presence of an underlying sense of (unacknowledged) shame from the repeated references to the officials’ disapproval of their entrepreneurialism and the portrayal of themselves as the victims of money-grabbing bureaucrats who show no respect for their integrity or contribution. The account conveys the sense of indignation and humiliation elicited when individuals feel unjustly picked on by others (Hahn, 2010): the disrespect implied by never being thanked and the admission of their own weakness at being forced on to the officials’ ‘hook’.

Another participant (OM15) who was preoccupied by frequent inspections, high taxes and high rent (which he paid to the state), gave a clear example of helpless anger by becoming incapable of carrying on the discussion about business growth:

His characterization of the question as ‘provocative’ suggests suppressed rage, elicited by having to confront his failure to achieve his growth ambitions, and casting himself in the role of victim. The anger is helpless, is turned in on himself, suffocating him. Indeed, it is interesting to note that related metaphors of sinking, drowning and being swallowed up have been frequently noted in studies of shame-related discourse (Nathanson, 1987; Scheff, 1990; Tangney and Dearing, 2002).

It was clear throughout the interviews that relations between entrepreneurs and state officials were perceived to be complex and delicate. Interactions with officials were so antagonizing for one entrepreneur (OM14) that he refused to personally participate in them at all, allocating this responsibility instead to the general director:

He solves me all the problems, with administration, with tax police, with all these sanitary inspections. All this shit. … If you do it [yourself], you start to shout. You just spoil all the relations.

Another (OM5) operating two small bakeries gave a slightly different response when she provided an account of the additional work she had to undertake in order to try to stay on the right side of officials, given the arbitrariness of their power (this involved organizing district competitions and generally going out of her way to win favours):

I have to make their acquaintance. … And I have to be a good girl. It’s better to be friends, otherwise we will have one [inspection] after another and they won’t let me live quietly. … [they] can always find something [to] criticize.

This participant accepts her deferential position and engages in appeasement behaviour – i.e.she shows officials that she is committed to the relationship by initiating different forms of cooperation, thereby attempting to build trust (Goffman, 1967; Keltner et al., 1997). Earlier in the interview she explained that she did not want to make waves by confronting officials about their poor service and corruption: ‘Whenever you lift your head higher than everyone else, you at once become a debtor of everyone else. Because you are a big one.’ Her approach to business, therefore, was cautious and largely reactive: ‘I am just navigating through.’

A few participants hinted that bonds forged with state officials were insecure due to their temporary nature (i.e. state officials were rotated among different posts). One working in the media sector said he spent a significant amount of time nurturing favourable relations with state officials, as these individuals controlled access to vital information upon which his business was dependent (OM7). This appeared to be an emotionally draining process. He explained, ‘the thing is that people [state officials] change … and we have to start over again. This is the biggest problem.’ Another elaborated, ‘people are changing so you pay one guy bribes and he guarantees you that as long as he stays on this chair [in his position], nothing will happen … all of the administrative chairs, the thing is they want to make money, all of them’ (OM14). These accounts suggest that with each new relationship, significant emotional energy is expended simply to allow the business to stand still.

Following negative descriptions of interactions with state officials, there were some attempts by participants to manage shame, as Fearon (2004) suggests, by emphasizing to the interviewer that things were not as problematic as they seemed (either as a form of impression management and/or to indicate that they still maintained some control):

It takes a very long time to get or process documents. There are many preventative things from the side of the administration in the service industry if you don’t pay additional bonuses [bribes]. … For instance, the building license, contracts with big state organs. It’s a nauseating thing and I don’t want to talk about it. (OM3)

But only a short while later this entrepreneur added:

I know how I have to talk to people. I know what bureaucrats, government office workers, need. And we do have sufficient money in order to assure ourselves of their service. This is like a necessary expense. But actually, it doesn’t really diminish our profits and we have a bigger profit than do Western companies. It’s just something you can’t get away from. (OM3)

Another made an effort to stress that despite the problems, he would ‘make it’:

It will be a lot of time to make it [to move the business to larger premises]. That’s all (he giggles). But we’ll make it …. We should spend some money on the real estate companies that will deal with this because without their help we will not make it because it’s very complicated to buy real estate here in Russia. And [the] second thing [is that] it is quite hard to make [the] registration and everything in the right way … we’ll make it, but we’ll spend some money on this and some time for this … There are a lot of different authorities in which we should register … some of the time the authorities come and ask, why didn’t you make the registration like this, this, and this, and please pay a penalty. And [we] paid one time. It’s bad (he giggles) (OM25).

This participant giggled once after mentioning the bureaucracy involved in buying and registering a new property for the business, and again after he discussed paying a fine; both cases represent potentially painful, resource-draining events for the entrepreneur. While laughter, as suggested earlier in the article, may signal trouble, it may also serve to dispel shame and preserve the social bond (Scheff, 1990). Put another way, it helps reduce the likelihood that feelings of anger will persist and serve to break the social bond (which may occur with unacknowledged shame, Scheff, 1990) – and in this case there was certainly nothing conventionally ‘funny’ about this event.

Finally, a few entrepreneurs expressed a sense of rejection. These individuals were keen to note that, in their view, the hostile actions of officials reflected apathy for, or disdain towards, small businesses. Feelings of rejection, vulnerability, and failure are just a few of those that point to an insecure bond and shame ultimately (Scheff, 2000).

All of those speeches and everything that is said by the government, it seems to be absolutely hot air. It’s just words … if our state were interested in SMEs our taxes would be absolutely different … For example, there may be new tax bills and we are not informed. After some months we get a paper from the tax inspection and they say you didn’t pay this and this and this tax. So you’re going to be fined. There is no support at all at the regional administration. (OM19)

One participant felt his business was considered worthless in the eyes of officials – not in terms of benign neglect but as an active form of hostility:

The authorities don’t want small businesses at all. … With the tax police you understand that they aren’t interested in you at all. They say, for example, there are some problems so you may close the enterprise! (OM18)

His indignation seemed to be turned into helpless anger against himself when, at the end of the interview, he asked the researcher whether other participants had negative encounters with the authorities; after being told ‘yes’, he replied:

Sometimes I think, maybe I am tired and I need some rest and everything will be alright. But I suppose it is the situation [and] not only me. (OM18)

Here too there is a familiar shame indicator: the desire to disappear, to somehow be removed from the situation, confirming the sense of being trapped in a powerless position (Katz, 1999).

It is clear that the entrepreneurs participating in these power rituals did, indeed, show evidence of shame. We can now turn to the way in which these experiences seemed to impact on their motivation for business growth and development.

C. The effect of power rituals on entrepreneurs’ motivation

For some entrepreneurs, interactions with state officials seemed to reduce emotional energy and the motivation to grow. In the latter case, interactions made the prospect of growing seem less attractive and/or feasible (i.e. these participants did not feel they were able to grow). If we recall OM15’s response, once he recovered his composure (following his account of feeling suffocated, above), he entered into a more defensive mode. Survival, it seemed was his main concern rather than growth:

I put it as my first level aim not so much to develop the firm but to survive and buy these premises. This is the most important issue for me for the next five years. I want you to understand this clearly, I am not putting in the first position now some development of the company…

The fact that he emphasizes ‘I want you to understand this clearly’, suggests that this is in conflict with his own desire; it represents a scaling down of any ambitious impression he may have given earlier; he is now confronting his limited agency. At this point in the interview he also began to pick up, but now more openly, on a theme that had emerged prior: the constraining role of other external forces. He then explained how his ability to grow the business was affected by competition from Moscow-based businesses. He claimed that these businesses had ample financial resources and with these resources such businesses ‘expand[ed] like a spider’s web in the whole country’. Many of these also had connections with members of the St. Petersburg administration and for this reason he believed they were able to secure many commercial contracts. He saw this very much as being barred from participating in rituals that were necessary to secure growth – even as a lowly order-taker:

Moscow is following the same policy of reconstructing Russia as [that which] existed under the Tzar. So everything should come from the top. So, of course, when managers from Moscow come to some organizations here [in St. Petersburg] naturally they will complete many negotiations and contracts with friends from Moscow. Sometimes it’s ridiculous.

It is significant that this participant discursively frames his explanation for his business difficulties in terms of the social relations within which he constructs his sense of powerlessness. The account is tinged with a sense of unjust exclusion, rejection and humiliation and gives the impression that entrepreneurial expansion is not the exciting promise of achievement and drive; rather, it is a shattered dream characterized by weariness and resignation. This is reminiscent of OM18’s comment (above) about being tired. He questions the desirability of staying in business if interactions with officials are likely to persist:

We have a lot of inspectors who can check something. For example when I started the business there was one inspection in two years. There was no one [who] cared about it … [I was] not so nervous. And now you feel it is something not so good. And there is this wish to get out from the shops to have the business which is not so, how to say … in the sights of the inspectors … for instance when we worked in [CD] distribution, they couldn’t see us. So it is quieter to work. Morally quiet. You are only [doing your] job. You don’t spend time … talking to inspectors and solving problems with them.

Missing from many of these accounts is a sense of optimism and excitement about future possibilities; in contrast there is a world-weary resignation (evident in the words of the previous entrepreneur who described a lack of state support and bureaucracy in Russia as being, ‘like rain and snow’ – OM18). This resignation was evoked when participants elaborated on their experiences of dealing with officialdom, i.e. their position in power rituals, suggesting that this is part of an ongoing socio-emotional process rather than a reflection of (pessimistic) individual personalities.

In fact, when their talk moved away from these interactions with officials, there was often a sense of optimism among participants. Some expressed hope for the future:

I have many interesting ideas for developing our business, and I think, I trust, I believe, we can achieve this. (OM7)

I’ve been dealing with [this] business for 12 years now and in these 12 years I’ve had the possibility to show everybody that I had the ability to lead a company. … We are at a positive point in our development at the moment. … we have motivation. (OM21)

We have very good potential for growing. (OM12)

This does suggest motivation was not totally absent, even in the face of active barring. The study’s focus on barriers may have gone some way to encouraging participants to emphasize the negative, but we would maintain that the emotional loading of these discussions (the accounts of dealings with officialdom were far more passionate than the optimistic statements) suggest that these are deeply felt experiences and not merely an artefact of questioning. For these entrepreneurs, at least, barring did seem to be an active force, not just a challenging foil for their motivation.