The paper discusseds social capital. In the first part the main definitional currents and research directions of this phenomenon are presented. The second part includes an attempt to assess the social capital of the unemployedresiding in the Mazowieckie Voivodeship. The basis for the analysis were primary data collected by the standardized interview among the unemployed in the Mazowieckie Voivodeship. Data analysis methods were conditioned by traits measurement scales. The multivariate analysis was performed using the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The method used to collect the data necessary to present the theoretical aspects of social capital consisted of research literature studies. The obtained results confirmed, in micro perspective low social capital of the unemployedfrom the Mazowieckie Voivodeship. The long-term unemployed showed a negative evaluation in all categories.
The essential for building the society – the category of social capital, becomes a base for educational politics in Poland in new structural conditions after 1989. Author reminding ideological and axiological assumption our oppositional environments from period of socialism, which within the confines of social movement „Solidarity’80” designed educational solutions, that should be introduced in free country. First of all, there was an idea of decentralization the school system and bringing autonomy of school. The most important was the possibility of creating the democratic process of social adaptation for new generation. But surprised our freedom, we forgotten about fundamental principles. In this case actually we have: an agreement for simulative educational changes, substitute ideological centralism for pseudo-democracy, artificial autonomy of school, and manipulating teachers environment by authorities of education departments each and every political party.
This article is divided into three parts, in the first part it is explained what social capital is, and its role in national security is depicted. In the second part, the problem of the importance of social rules in the construction of social capital is discussed. The third part of the article is the culmination of the analysis and shows the role of soft factors in the process of building national security. The quality of social capital depends on how the society works. It is strongly related to other pillars of state security, including the armed forces. The most important message from the content of this article is the statement: a strong society means a safe state.
The main objective of this paper is to predict the value of social capital at Red Hat Corporation, using a developed neural network model. Training data were collected and calculated based on balance sheets published for the years 2005 - 2012. Five variables were proposed as an input of the neural network. The output variable presented the value of social capital, calculated by fundamental equation [Walukiewicz 2006]. The artificial neural network had been trained in Statistica Automated Neural Network.
In this article I propose that the resources of social capital in an enterprise can significantly influence the patterns of worker's participation. This influence is analyzed with regard to different theories in the field of enterprise studies: neoclassical, behavioral, as well as transaction cost approach, property rights approach and the principal-agent theory; I also will draw on empirical research
The essay is dedicated to the influence of the Protestantism on economic effectiveness. According to the well-known Max Weber’s thesis the Christian culture was of crucial significance for the incremental creation of the market economy principles. In turn the Protestantism formed fundamental background for „modern rational capitalism”. Richard Swedberg, famous economic sociologist, following Max Weber, pointed out three factors bound up with Protestantism that had an impact on modern capitalism. Firstly, Dr Martin Luther stressed that the calling of man is the everyday solid work. Secondly, Jean Calvin defined economic success as the proof of the grace of Lord. Thirdly, American Protestantism demands absolute obedience to the commandments and honest behaviour towards other people. The diligence, activity and honesty were the source of trust among people (today defined as a component of „social capital”). The main thesis of the essay focused on the role of Protestant inspiration in forming trust as the source of contemporary economic effectiveness. Sociological research (among others conducted by Ronald Inglehard) proved that relatively high level of trust (especially „bridging social capital”) is a vital feature of highly developed economies of the Protestant countries. However, it should be stressed that there exists no simple cause-effect relationship between these two phenomena. Rather, they are aspects of a complex correlation network.
This paper presents analysis of connections between institutional participants of crossborder cooperation Poland and German for example selected projects of the European Territorial Cooperation 2007–2013. The relations were analysed in the context of the social capital concept (Pierre Bourdieu, Ronald Burt, James Coleman, Robert Putnam, Nan Lin) using basic network indexes: density and centrality of the network, degree of the nodes, amounts of bridges and brokers. Authors described the structure and dynamics of relations on the borderland between Poland and Germany, and the position of nodes in network.
The article deals with relationships between human capital and social capital. Often is mentioned that presence of social capital is key condition of success investment in human capital. The article presents opposite view – investments in human capital are necessary condition investments in social capital (at least in individual social capital). The three main form of social capital (bonding, bridging and linking social capital) are described at it is shown when generating each form can generate individuals profit and utility – in each case individuals must also invest in their human capital. Investments in human capital can also respond to the situation when investments in social capital become obsolete or devalue.
In the article, „social capital” is understood as the ability to cooperate, involvement on behalf of the common good. In the Polish society, lack of skills in this regard is a significant social problem. Could the school prepare students to cooperate, to assume common responsibility? The Polish school culture substantially hinders the development of skills of this type. The barrier encountered is the tradition based on traditional instruction methods, the ways of motivating students to work through competition and individual assessment and a visible distance between teachers and students, which makes it difficult to establish communication between teachers and students. A teacher does not serve as a model of a social worker, either, since in most cases, teachers neither like nor are able to engage in social works. A change in the attitudes and habits at school is a difficult and time-consuming; however, it is possible. We can expect that the attempts made, such as civic education lessons conducted using the active learning methods, as well as activity of various civic associations and foundations will have a positive result in the future.
In the context of post‑accession migration from Poland it is important to analyze not only its economic but social and cultural implications for receiving and home country as well as for migrants themselves. Recent migration takes place in a new context of inter‑European mobility and as such can be treated as a part of ‘life project’, career strategy and a new form of migration. The paper focus is on the theoretical and empirical frame of social and cultural capital accumulated by migrants abroad and transferred into home country. The theoretical framework is supposed to provide a base for empirical research on the social and cultural capital transfer possibilities in the case of return migration. The question such a research would try to answer is: can the return migrants bean active actors of innovation and social change?
Political communication is an indispensable quality of highly organized democratic society. However, in modern societies, to achieve optimal efficiency of political communication, it has to refer to social bonds, values and symbols characteristic for this exact society. Therefore, it is hard to accept these models of democratic society, which indicate some kind of common, the same in different environment, model of efficient political communication. The author presents a hypothesis saying that this efficiency depends on attributes of specific society. Hence, each general model must be adopted to those attributes. The author cites Polish society as an example and attempts to point out that qualities of culture, tradition and social values determine political communication effectiveness. Such political communication, if adjusted to specific social bonds, not only causes transmission of political ideas but also stimulates social activity and reinforces civil society.
The report shows that material conditions are fundamental to social cohesion, particularly employment, income, health, education and housing. Relations between and within communities suffer when people lack work and endure hardship, debt, anxiety, low self-esteem, ill-health, poor skills and bad living conditions. These basic necessities of life are the foundations of a strong social fabric and important indicators of social progress. The second basic tenet of cohesion is social order, safety and freedom from fear, or "passive social relationships". Tolerance and respect for other people, along with peace and security, are hallmarks of a stable and harmonious urban society. The third dimension refers to the positive interactions, exchanges and networks between individuals and communities, or "active social relationships". Such contacts and connections are potential resources for places since they offer people and organisations mutual support, information, trust and credit of various kinds. The fourth dimension is about the extent of social inclusion or integration of people into the mainstream institutions of civil society. It also includes people's sense of belonging to a city and the strength of shared experiences, identities and values between those from different backgrounds. Lastly, social equality refers to the level of fairness or disparity in access to opportunities or material circumstances, such as income, health or quality of life, or in future life chances.
The article deals with the study of the role of human and social capital in shaping the processes of regional development in Poland in 2002–2014. The study is aimed at seeking answers to the question whether and to what extent the characteristics of human and social capital development impeded or fostered the achievement of convergence in living standards (GDP per capita) in regional systems (NUTS-2). The following tools were used: multidimensional statistical exploratory analysis – the cluster analysis (Ward’s, k-means), linear ordering – as well as correlation analysis and measures of statistical dispersion. The analysis confirm a stronger link of the processes of economic development in Polish regions with human capital than in those with social capital, whereby there is evidence indicating that it was rather a higher level of the economic development that stimulated changes in human capital and the reverse impact of human capital on the change in the GDP per capita was weaker. When it comes to the educational component of human capital, it can be assumed that this component of human capital could have had a more polarizing than converging impact. The social capital did not mitigate nor strengthen the polarizing impact of human capital. There was, therefore, no confirmation to the hypothesis that intangible factors – human and social capitals – contributed to the convergence in living standards among regions in Poland in 2002–2014.
Academic culture is a set of rules (norms and values) regulating the institution of the university. The central component of academic culture is autonomy both in the sense of independence from external interference and the capacity to decide on research, teaching and organization of the university. Autonomy is endangered by the interference in academic culture of other cultural complexes characteristic for modern society: corporate culture, business culture, bureaucratic culture, financial culture, consumer culture. The resulting cultural clash is the reason for current crisis of the university. The defense of autonomy is the ethical and professional duty of scholars.
The article is devoted to the work of Elinor Ostrom, the winner of the economic Nobel Prize in 2009. It presents the main principles of Ostrom’s theory, underlining its role in the development of theoritcal reflection in social and economic sciences as well as its practical dimension helping to find solutions for effective commons governing. The authors present arguments that Ostrom’s research results are of great significance: they contribute to the development of the so called second generation theory of collective action by combining results from experiments with field research and have an immense practical effect proving the importance of social capital and other “intangible” factors for overcoming collective action dilemmas, increasing economic effectiveness and achieving long-term sustainability.
The social consequence of gating have been generally characterized as negative, particularly in regards to raising issues of social injustice such as the privatization of space, estrangement, and segregation. Some authors have found positive social consequences of gating particularly in regard to reducing the scale of segregation and promoting social interdependency as a form of social integration as well as encouraging neighbourhood cohesion and maintaining social capital. The following is a critical review of the positive consequences of gating within the overall trend of commodification of community in new residential developments.
Following article presents basic points contained in the book "The Spirit Level" byRichard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Author reconstructs the author’s theory about the social consequences of income inequality and shows its main disadvantages. Empirical part of the article presents the results of the analysis conducted on the sample of 64 Polish municipalities. For each of them the main indicators of the level of income inequality, population’s health, the level of social capital and sense of security were computed. The results of the analysis indicated no statistically significant correlation between the level of income inequality and analyzed indicators
The prevailing way of understanding, what social capital is, stresses it’s positive functions and effects on the society and on individuals. The article, however, underlies the negative aspects of social capital in both ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ versions. The author summarizes critical arguments concerning political usage of the social capital concept, shows it’s negative functions, and why focusing on one type of social capital weakens social integration by weakening the reputation of individuals.
Behind the support for homeownership in many countries, there is widespread belief that homeownership creates better citizens. Recognising that homeownership is a more time-intensive form of tenancy than renting, but also that the valuation of some forms of social capital is complementary to the residential property value, we hypothesise that ownership will reduce engagement in some forms of social interactions and increase it in others. Using a survey data set of Danish households we test this hypothesis. The results indicate that homeowners tend to be selective in their investments in social capital.
This article presents the idea of a network organization in the context of creating social capital, with the SWIS association as an example. A summary of this work forwards the following conclusion: Social capital can be developed provided managerial competencies and the right attitude of people of managerial positions is present. The article provides practical recommendations for people managing network organizations.
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