Claudia Käfer, entrepreneur, sociologist and co-founder of inventures.eu, explains the origins of our article series “From the sociologist’s notebook.”
I started my sociology doctorate about the same time I started my first company. In my first colloquium, my later-to-be academic supervisor for my dissertation opened the floor for discussions. He obviously liked the controversial Thomas theorem “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”, so what came out of it was a huge debate. What an intellectual difference and enrichment compared to the somewhat binary system of my previous student days at the University of Economics and Business, where results were always carved in stone! The concepts I studied stayed with me and with the progress of my company: I used them to explain customer behaviour and to create better customer experiences.
As a founding member of inventures.eu, I observe so many startups evolve. It occurred to me that the dynamics underlying startups – the people acting in them and the impact they have on a society level – have been research topics for centuries. The format “From the sociologist’s notebook” is anattempt to take a step back and explain the current entrepreneurship zeitgeist through the theories of well-established sociologists (and most of the time, multi-talents). We do not want to be extremely academic, smart or funny about it – we just want to make these concepts an accessible and fun weekend read, so we hope you enjoy this weekly series!
Photo credit: Ina Ciobanu
