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MA/PhD Theses Abstracts of Current Students & Alumni |
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Kranendonk, Barbara. 1996 - Married and Making a Living: Relationships in the Work Life of Married Couples Owning Small Franchise Businesses in the United States.
Abstract: Small business ownership is an example of a kind of American work system that can, and often does, include a family system as well. Work and family systems are cultural systems -- systems of interactions between people that create meaning and order in their lives. Now, in a time of deindustrialization that creates employment and ecoomic problems for many Americans, the number of small family businesses appears to be increasing. Applied anthropologists are interested in identifying those segments of a social group who are most likely to divert from the norm -- either to resist a new activity or project or to respond positively to an innovation. Small family businesses are one kind of social segment in the business culture of the th United States that provide a context and artifacts that form the stage for the acting out of cultural processes relating to changes in employment and work life. The purpose of this dissertation is to discover how small business ownership is adaptive or not adaptive in the life circumstances of married couple-owners. This dissertation is based on three years of survey research and ethnographic field work among married couples owning Sir Speedy Printing franchises in the United States. The analytical orientation is anthropological, grounded in family systems theory. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches, the study seeks to examine the structure of and interaction processes in spousal/entrepreneurial relationships. The results suggest a model for the organization of work life that is hierarchical and complementary. From the resullts on the FACES II marital inventory, these couples have a tendency toward enmeshment with their spouses. In addition, their heightened flexibility means that realationship rules and role allocations are easily changed when circumstances require it. Role bargains, levels of emotional reactivity, as well as balance in cohesion and adaptability, are areas of challenge for these couples. Educational and interpersonal skill-development training can be used with these couples in order to address relationship issues. Models for such applications are suggested as a part of this dissertation.
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