Institutions, the social capital structure, and multilevel marketing companies

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-70
Author(s):  
Jordan K. Lofthouse ◽  
Virgil Henry Storr

AbstractIn multilevel marketing companies (MLMs), member-distributors earn income from selling products and recruiting new members. Successful MLMs require a social capital structure where members can access and mobilize both strong and weak social ties. Utah has a disproportionate share of MLM companies located in the state and a disproportionate number of MLM participants. We argue that Utah's dominant religious institutions have led to the emergence of a social capital structure, making MLMs particularly viable. Utah is the most religiously homogeneous state; roughly half its population identifies as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The LDS Church's institutions foster a social capital structure where (almost all) members have access to and can leverage social capital in all its forms. LDS institutions encourage members to make meaningful social connections characterized by trust and reciprocity with other church members in local neighborhoods and across the world.

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4.7) ◽  
pp. 19
Author(s):  
Zadeh Foroughinia ◽  
Hakimeh Mohammadzadeh ◽  
Reza Pourmirza Kalhori ◽  
Neda Kianipour

The concept of social capital, due to its nature and content, is associated with almost all the issues in the human, social and health fields. On the other hand, the role of happiness and joy in mental health, physical health, and social inclusion are very important in the field of health. The purpose of this study was to investigate the components of social capital and its relation with social happiness of students in Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in 2017. This study is descriptive-correlational. The research population consisted of 450 students in Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences in 2017who were selected by cluster sampling. Bullen& Onyx Standard Social Capital Questionnaire and Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (OHQ) were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics (Pearson correlation coefficient). Data analysis was performed using SPSS-23 software. In this research, social capital score was 3.17 ± 0.45 according to the students' score and the mean score of the social happiness was 3.68 ± 0.14. There was a positive and significant relationship between two variables of social capital and social happiness of students (r=0.423). Among the social capital fields, the variables of the value of life, trust, and security had the most and the least relationship with the overall social happiness. Social capital and its aspects have a direct and significant relationship with the social happiness; therefore, with increasing the social capital, the level of social happiness increases.  


1975 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 607-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vernon Van Dyke

In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls assumes that the principles of justice are for individuals in a society, and in general he assumes that the society is an ethnically homogeneous state. He thus follows the tradition associated with the dominant form of the social contract theory, which focuses on the individual and the state. His assumptions neglect the fact that almost all states are ethnically plural or heterogeneous, and that many of them confer special status and rights on ethnic groups as collective entities; for example, many of them confer special status and rights on indigenous groups, on groups disadvantaged by prior discrimination, and on minorities and other groups conceded a right to survive as distinct cultural entities. Status and rights for groups necessarily mean differentiation among individuals depending on their membership; and this in turn means that a theory of justice that focuses on the individual and neglects the group both fails to account for existing practices and fails to give guidance where the practices are at issue.


Author(s):  
Tayyaba Sohail ◽  
Inam-ul-Haq ◽  
Raja Muhammad Shoaib

Social capital is manifested through the relationships and networks that the human species own. Further, it is strengthened with trust and reciprocity. It inculcates the value of helping each other based on the principle of ‘Mutually Beneficial Actions’. Various actors and agents play their roles in producing the social capital, yet women play the most vital role in its production due to their domestic chores, more frequent engagement with family and neighborhood. Thus, it is an essential to know that if she takes an equivalent benefit from the social capital. The primary objective of the present research determines out the role of social capital in women’s career planning. The informal social networks, family, friends, and neighborhood are selected to the social capital. In the meantime, 150 female respondents from the University of the Punjab were selected using the non-probability convenience sampling technique from the final year of the Masters and Bachelors program. The findings of the study showed as the positive relation of social capital with career planning.


2012 ◽  
pp. 7-21
Author(s):  
Hans Westlund

In the last nineteen years we have witnessed an explosion of research on social capital in almost all the social sciences. The question addressed by this paper is the following one: what has been achieved during these years? The first part of the discussion is devoted to a review of the most influential definitions of social capital. The second point concerns the theoretical arguments on social capital's impact on regional development: how social capital affects production, incomes and other output that we normally consider to be development. Starting from these considerations, the main theoretical problems in literature will be pointed out. Finally, the last part of this work refers to the future for studies on social capital and local and regional development.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 756
Author(s):  
Eunju Hwang ◽  
Nancy Brossoie ◽  
Jin Wook Jeong ◽  
Kimin Song

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the neighborhood built environment (NBE) aspects of age-friendly cities and communities (AFCCs) and social capital in the Korean context. We described and compared age differences when analyzing misfits of AFCC NBE and impacts on social capital. We collected the data (N = 1246) from two Korean communities; our multiple and binary logistic regression outcomes show that AFCC NBE aspects such as outdoor spaces, transportation, and housing are significant predictors of different subcategories of social capital. For the older group, the outdoor spaces misfit was significant for all three subcategories of social capital, but transportation and housing misfits were significant for the social trust and reciprocity index scores. For the middle-aged group, the outdoor spaces misfit was significant for social networking and participation, and a transportation misfit was significant for participation and social trust and reciprocity. Fewer misfits or better fits of outdoor spaces and transportation encouraged more networking, participation, social trust, and reciprocity. Dwelling type was important to predict social capital, especially for the older group. The present study confirmed the importance of AFCC NBE in predicting social capital and unique factors in the Korean context.


2006 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Sharon Jeannotte

Abstract: Our Millennium was a special project of the Community Foundations of Canada to mark the new century. It used the occasion of the millennium to invite Canadians to make lasting “gifts” to their communities to make them better places. An assessment of the Our Millennium initiative noted the disproportionate number of projects that featured various aspects of arts, culture, and heritage. This study examines the linkages between the cultural capital embedded in the communities and the social capital that it generated. It investigates the nature of both the projects and the participants in them as well as the major social capital themes that the arts, culture, and heritage projects appeared to be supporting. It also explores the concept of “cultural citizenship,” locating it in the social and physical spaces in which civic engagement takes place. Résumé : Our Millennium est le nom d’un projet spécial de la Community Foundations of Canada, initié pour marquer le début d’un nouveau siècle. Profitant de l’avènement du prochain millénaire, ce projet propose à la population canadienne d’améliorer leurs communautés en faisant des dons susceptibles de perdurer. L’analyse de cette initiative souligne un nombre disproportionnel de programmes mettant l’accent sur divers aspects des arts, de la culture, et du patrimoine. Cette étude revoit les liens entre le capital culturel inscrit dans les communautés et le capital social généré. Il examine la nature des projets et des participants ainsi que les principaux thèmes de capital social que les projets en arts, en culture et en patrimoine semblent suggérer. Il explore aussi le concept d’appartenance culturelle, le situant dans les lieux sociaux et physiques de l’implication civique.


2010 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 311-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Hedge ◽  
Renée J. Johnson ◽  
Hyun Jung Yun

Scholars are rediscovering the social context of politics and governing, including race, trust, and, if recent elections are a guide, America’s “culture wars.” Social capital that network of social relations and the accompanying norms of trust and reciprocity is very much to the point of those dynamics. Evidence from the first round of welfare reform in the late 1990s is used to explore the relationship between elements of social capital, race and state welfare policy choices. The evidence from the welfare case suggests that one element of social capital, generalized trust, often has an independent effect on welfare policies. States with higher levels of trust are more likely to adopt welfare policies that rely on “carrots” rather than “sticks” to move individuals off welfare and into jobs. At the same time the evidence makes it clear that the influence of trust is very much conditioned by racial considerations, most notably the racial composition of welfare caseloads.


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