In contrast to traditional analyses of minority business, the sociological analysis contends that minority business ownership is a group-level phenomenon, in that it is largely dependent upon social-group resources for its development. Specifically, this analysis indicates that support networks play a critical role in starting and maintaining minority business enterprises by providing owners with a range of assistance, from the informal encouragement of family members and friends to dependable sources of labor and clientele from the owner’s ethnic group (ethnic group: n.同种同文化之民族). Such self-help networks, which encourage and support ethnic minority entrepreneurs, consist of “primary” institutions, those closest to the individual in shaping his or her behavior and beliefs. They are characterized by the face-to-face association and cooperation of persons united by ties of mutual concern. They form an intermediate social level between the individual and larger “secondary” institutions based on impersonal relationships. Primary institutions comprising the support network include kinship, peer, and neighborhood or community subgroups.
A major function of self-help networks is financial support. Most scholars agree that minority business owners have depended primarily on family funds and ethnic community resources for investment capital. Personal savings have been accumulated, often through frugal living habits that require sacrifices by the entire family and are thus a product of long-term family financial behavior. Additional loans and gifts from relatives, forthcoming because of group obligation rather than narrow investment calculation, have supplemented personal savings. Individual entrepreneurs do not necessarily rely on their kin because they cannot obtain financial backing from commercial resources. They may actually avoid banks because they assume that commercial institutions either cannot comprehend the special needs of minority enterprise or charge unreasonably high interest rates.
Within the larger ethnic community, rotating credit associations have been used to raise capital. These associations are informal clubs of friends and other trusted members of the ethnic group who make regular contributions to a fund that is given to each contributor in rotation. One author estimates that 40 percent of New York Chinatown firms established during 1900-1950 utilized such associations as their initial source of capital. However, recent immigrants and third or fourth generations of older groups now employ rotating credit associations only occasionally to raise investment funds. Some groups, like Black Americans, found other means of financial support for their entrepreneurial efforts. The first Black-operated banks were created in the late nineteenth century as depositories (depository: n.存放处) for dues (due: n. [复]应付款) collected from fraternal or lodge groups, which themselves had sprung from Black churches. Black banks made limited investments in other Black enterprises. Irish immigrants in American cities organized many building and loan associations to provide capital for home construction and purchase. They, in turn, provided work for many Irish home-building contractor firms. Other ethnic and minority groups followed similar practices in founding ethnic-directed financial institutions.
3、Which of the following can be inferred from the passage about rotating credit associations?
(A) They were developed exclusively by Chinese immigrants.
(B) They accounted for a significant portion of the investment capital used by Chinese immigrants in New York in the early twentieth century.
(C) Third-generation members of an immigrant group who started businesses in the 1920’s would have been unlikely to rely on them.
(D) They were frequently joint endeavors by members of two or three different ethnic groups.（B）
(E) Recent immigrants still frequently turn to rotating credit associations instead of banks for investment capital.
我觉得这道题的答案b应回到黄色阴影处定位,可是黄色阴影处的意思是“40％的企业利用了association”，不是“企业的40％的资金来自于association啊？
那为何选择b选项呢？我选了c,定位在红字处，现在看来似乎也有问题。原文说第三代人现在利用association只是偶尔的筹集资金，好像也不是c选项中说的不依赖于association，应该是不依赖于association的一个功能：筹集资金。
困惑中，请nn们帮忙。。。。。
| 
京公网安备11010202008513号 京ICP证101109号 京ICP备12012021号
发表于 2005-8-10 21:45:00
楼主
.偶也惭愧一下.
