Cooperation and conflict between two cultures: institutionalising NewBuC

Jones, Oswald (2001) Cooperation and conflict between two cultures: institutionalising NewBuC. UNSPECIFIED. Manchester Metropolitan University. ISSN 1471-857X

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Abstract

As recently pointed out by Aldrich (2000), despite an extensive literature on entrepreneurship there are very few studies which examine the startup process. In this paper I report on my own involvement with an organisation formed to provide assistance to those considering starting their own businesses. NewBuC was the idea of Stan Astley an entrepreneur with a business located on Regional Science Park which he felt paid too little attention to technology-based firms. I, along with a small number of staff from X Business School, joined with Stan and his business associates to setup NewBuC as a viable organisation. This process is examined using ideas associated with institutional analysis in which "values and taken-for-granted assumption" have an important role in shaping the social interaction which is the foundation of all organisational activity. In establishing the organisation, differing norms and interpretive schemes associate with public and private sectors were quickly revealed. In particular, there was conflict between public sector philanthropy and the private sector desire for profits. Data are drawn from participant-observation and interviews with all the main actors to illustrate how the structuration of NewBuC occurred over an 18 month period.