By employing the concept of a social capital the author argues that the best measure of a theoretical development for any economic theory of organisation is its contribution in the understanding of a social capital. In this way social capital is becoming one of the key factors of evolutionary changes within the economic theory of organisation. The author further wishes to point out how the evolutionary progress in economic theory of organisation brings about increasingly improved understanding of the relations in the theoretical models. However, the concession required for this improvement is a lower degree of a theoretical generalisation and more intense heterogeneity of the economic theory itself. The less effort an economic theory of organisation devotes to being theoretically impeccable, the more abundant are the increasing returns it yields through its findings with regard to the aspect of the social capital.
The subject of this article is analysis of dependences between social capital and trust in public authority subjects. Social trust means generalized trust directed to others. Trust is the crucial factor of social capital, which may be defined as potential of social participation and co-operation existing in particular community, based on shared values, norms and mutual trust. In consequence the high trust co-operation of group members is easier. The article presents factors that build high trust in public authority subjects. The article shows trust as the basic of cooperation in community and as key element of social capital.
The subject of the article is confidence as part of relationship between entrepreneurs and officials representing the units of local government. Apart from epistemological part the article includes empirical monograph: the author’s focus findings conducted among entrepreneurs acting in Białystok area. The following items were analyzed: enterpreneurs’ opinion on the character and specificity of their relationship with officials, importance of this relationship and expectations towards local authorities concerning operations which support development of local and regional enterprise. The issues were interpreted considering the concept of confidence as the basis for proper relationship.
The empirical research carried out in different countries on the performance of family businesses in comparison to their non-family counterparts show that the former are more effective than the latter. The natural source of the family business competitive advantage is family, social capital. Trust is a major element which makes up the capital. In the paper, the author describes the nature of the trust and identifies critical conditions necessary to sustain this strategic resource as time goes by and the business grows. According to the concept by Sundaramurthy to sustain the emotional trust in family businesses, their found-ers and managers have to focus on developing other forms of trust which are complementary to the emotional one and support it. Family firms have potential to generate bigger cross-border social capital, which lets them achieve better results in foreign markets.
The aim of this article is to put forward the following hypothesis: during the crisis of the trust non-used potential of the social capital is a barrier to low-income housing needs financing in Poland. Author presents the role of trust crisis in theory and practice pointing out definitions of the trust. In the second part of this paper author presents the possibilities of using social capital to financing housing needs. Trust creation, as a basic attribute of the social capital can have positive influence on the social well-being. However, it needs multifaceted acts at the local, regional and national level.
The phenomenon and the notion of social capital are not new, but they are being approached and discussed in the context of new concepts of sustainable development of rural areas. The authoressess present the main conclusions and observations from an international Summer Academy devoted to the issue of social capital of rural areas that was organized in Finland . For more information about the organizer of workshops, about its forms and methodology see the previous abstract of the same authoresses' article.They also present, using the examples of Finish villages, the process and effects of the strengthening of the social capital of rural communities.
Empirical evidence is growing which shows that social capital contributes to economic development on local and regional scales, and is an ubiquitous component and determinant of progress in many kinds of development projects and an important tool for poverty reduction. Today, the importance of social capital for the economy is undisputed. Many scientific papers have been written on this subject but missing are papers on tools and ways to stimulate and develop social capital. This paper makes such an attempt.
The lack of financial resources needed to solve the everyday problems in Ukrainian local communities actualize the issue of working out new financial mechanisms to enhance financial base for local development. The effectiveness of participatory financing as one of such mechanisms is examined in the paper. Investigation of the impact of the mechanism of participatory financing of the European Union and UNDP “Community based approach to local development” on social and economic development of Ukrainian local communities leads to the conclusion that the method of financing acts as an institution which motivates the local community self-organization, initiative activity and productive cooperation with the authorities. The analysis showed a positive impact of participatory financing both on economic indicators of local community development in the short run and on the characteristics of the communities’ social capital which could be a factor for long term economic development. This conclusion is supported by regional experts. Generally they evaluate the scheme of participatory financing as an effective one. The main value of this model of financing is a synergistic effect (all the participants get result that they could not achieve individually).
The social capital of an enterprise, understood as a network of relations among particular entities within a company, as well as those between the firm and its environment, can be best created by enhancing trust levels. Trust is indispensable for the development of every enterprise. Therefore, business entities have to undertake such steps that will reinforce it. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the nature of social capital on an enterprise level and to analyse the issue of trust as one of the pillars on which social capital is founded.
The paper begins with a discussion of the notion of social capital which seems to gain increasing popularity in both academic and media discourse. The concept of social capital can be understood in several, often contradictory, ways which proves useful both for its positive interpretation and critical analysis. The second part of the paper is devoted to the issue of the relationship between the notion of social capital and modernization theories. The final section of the text discusses three main ideological orientations of the contemporary Polish political discourse: the left (social-democratic) orientation, the right (conservative) orientation and the centre (liberal) orientation. These three discourses are linked to the ideal visions of Poland they imply. These visions in turn are presented both from the positive and critical standpoints. In all cases, it is shown how the notion of social capital can be used to support the arguments both for and against each of the orientations.
The influence of inequality on economic growth is the subject of heated interest of economists from several years. It is symptomatic, and surprising in the light of traditional standpoint of economics, that majority of empirical research point to positive dependence between equality and growth. The analysis of findings of this research suggests that equality affects growth through: improved allocation of economic resources, that enhance the possibility of poor to educate and increase the human capital; reduction of economic fluctuation; political stability; and strengthening the social capital.
Te article aims to present the relationship between ethno-cultural diferentiation and social capital. It analyses both theoretical accounts and empirical studies conducted in diferent social settings. Te author emphasizes advantages and disadvantages of bonding social capital, i.e. social connections, networks and groups of people similar to each other in terms of socio-cultural characteristics. Te analysis outlines diferent explanations concerning possible negative relationship between ethno-cultural diferentiation and bridging social capital.
This article examines corruption trends in a sample of more than hundred countries. In the first part it documents that approximately 30 countries and three regions have the significant corruption trends, measured by Kendall's. Regarding the main regions in the world, corruption is increasing in Africa and in post-communist Europe as well, while the countries in the Orient are becoming less corrupt. The residuals from a standard corruption model show systematic variation that corresponds to the meagre information available on social capital. For a sub-sample of 22 European countries some social capital data are available, measured as generalised trusts scores. The article documents that the main force driving the variation in corruption trend are underlying trends in social capital. In practical level is the problem of corruption brought to the concrete economic-political conjunctions. The recent advances in social capital research imply that curbing income inequality and investing in education, overall institutional quality and political stability could result in more trusting populations.
The article refers to the concept of social capital, which is in recent years very popular among researchers active in the field of social sciences. The author attempts to recapitulate the most popular definitional approaches to this concept, presenting the four most famous among them and putting them into two main groups, one of which is characterized by treating social capital as a specific category of resource owned by individuals in connection with their interactions with other people and communities. Second group of approaches recognize social capital as a kind of metaphor that allows to describe the formulation of a broader catalogue of social phenomena, located primarily in the sphere of cultural values and ethics. This approach shows at the same time a strong relationship with the way of understanding civil society arising of the tocquevillean tradition. In the last part of the paper an attempt was taken to formulate a synthetic definition of the term “social capital”, referring to previous efforts taken by international authors to formulate a compromise definition combining both of these groups of definitional approaches.
Although social capital is usually analysed in sociological terms, these days it is more and more often believed to have a significant bearing on national incomes and living standards of societies. The present paper describes the importance of social capital for the creation of information society, based on information technology development. Relationships established among individuals are a characteristic trait of the development of information society. As the process of globalisation advances, social capital is increasingly frequently interpreted in the way that emphasises the attributes of these relationships. Theoretical findings have been evaluated empirically in studies that describe business networks in international food-business enterprises in Wielkopolska.
Due to the ongoing globalisation of the markets, and thus increasing unpredictability of the business environment, the concept of intelligent organisation based on the intelligence of human resources is gaining significance. However, in order to effectively use the knowledge, skills and experience of individual employees, and to transfer knowledge, it has become necessary to also take into account the social capital represented by such resources as trust, loyalty and credibility. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to prove the significance of social capital for intellectual entrepreneurship. Business entities which take social capital into consideration might count on gaining new competitive advantages, associated, e.g., with information, innovation or communication.
This chapter focuses on several aspects affecting the life of binational marriages currently residing in Poland. Examined herein are the dilemmas which transnational couples face in deciding about place of residence, language(s) of communication, the culture of their children’s education, etc. Also of interest are assessments of both the positive and negative aspects of transnational married life as well as the unique problems identified by the spouses in their descriptions. These marriages have been analyzed as a case of cultural contact under the circumstances of strong emotional ties and a special closeness which underscore the slightest of cultural differences separating the partners. At the same time, it is on their basis that boundaries are shattered between what is familiar and what is foreign. The analyzed material is drawn from long-term qualitative research – specifically 65 in-depth interviews conducted in Warsaw and several other Polish cities over the past decade with one or both spouses. In each case, one of the partners is of Polish nationality while the other comes from Europe, Africa, Latin America or Asia.
Over the last two decades, globalization has resulted in an unprecedented level of migration flows due to the freedom of movement, and, social exchange, due to the improvement of both telecommunications and increasingly affordable travel. A striking feature of what has come to be termed the ‘new migration’ is precisely the dynamic ways in which some arriving migrants, such as the Poles, have capitalised on their transnational associations, via a most efficient ‘exploitation’ of existing/new social capital networks. On the other hand, such benefits appear to remain beyond the reach of other arriving groups, such as the Polish Roma. The paper focuses on narrativising the differing patterns of migratory experience, by utilising data from research on post-Accession Polish Roma and Polish migrants arriving to the UK. It examines social capital formation in urban settings, juxtaposed with their respective relationships’ to the ‘wider world’. Also, their respective mechanisms adopted in order to ‘appropriate’ contested space as a basis for individual / group interaction with the wider society, and, the differential levels of success in securing such. The paper also analyses how the groups’ culturally determined public and private activities (such as boundary observation) can inhibit their public representation, and resulting ownership to shared public space. This analysis is intentionally contextualised; set within the geopolitical and cultural contexts of each group. It explores the contingent nature of existing social / cultural capital, and the negotiation of space for the ‘self’, as well as for the group. The detailed personal experiences, illustrated via personal narratives, exemplify the situational realities – that social capital can be seen as both an enhanced provider [as in the case of Polish migrants], or an inhibitor [as in the case of Polish Roma], of equitable representation within public space in civil society.
Research on national innovation system has increased noticeably in recent years. However, while some literature is available on technology management, little information is available on social capital. Similarly, the study on social capital has been mounting steadily, but little work is available on national innovation system. Thus, this work used the reports of World Bank and World Value Survey, applying the linear structural relation model to consider this relationship between the social capital and national innovation system. Overall, the results found that the innovation seem a collective achievement embedded with other social activities, and that the social capital like a catalyser helps the collective innovation and economic productivity. Thus, this work suggests that every country should recognize that economy was closely embedded with social structure, and that should enrich the social capital to improve the performance of national innovation system and economic productivity.
The aim of the article is to present one of the possible models of social policy - civic social policy. The author argues that traditional models such as those proposed by Esping- Andersen are based on the ideological criteria, which makes it difficult to accept one of them by all political parties. Therefore, the solution is to create model which concerns ways of accomplishment of social policy rather than ideology. Presenting the concept of civic social policy, the author argues that not only government, but also citizens and companies should be responsible for social and economic life. The subsidiarity should be the main rule organizing the social policy. The social capital can be used to accomplish some social tasks. When choosing the contractor of social tasks, price should not be the only criteria, but direct and indirect results rather.
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