Sensemaking the Small Business Credit Crunch: The Network of Recession and Barriers to Recovery

Abstract

In this paper we use Critical Sensemaking and Actor-Network Theory to apply business anthropology to the lending of money to small business, the financial crisis, the recession and possible recovery. A plausible link between fear of becoming a lender who made a substantial mistake (as the mortgage lenders pre-2008 have been characterized) and unwillingness to lend is described. Statistical evidence of low levels of lending has been interrelated with extensive narrative and discourse analysis of the text of small business persons, entrepreneurs, lenders, pundits and reports on the economic crisis. A theory of prospective sensemaking is described from the actions of bank officers and the surrounding discourse.