scholarly journals The Paradox of Employee–Volunteer Interchangeability in a Supported Social Enterprise

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-107
Author(s):  
Kunle Akingbola ◽  
Suwimon Phaetthayanan

This research examines the paradox of employee–volunteer interchangeability as a core resource in a nonprofit social enterprise organization. Specifically, the research investigates a) how the human and social capital derived from employee–volunteer interchangeability drives strategic intent, and b) how challenges associated with employee–volunteer interchangeability hinder strategic intent. The research provides insight into how employees and volunteers value outcomes that are dependent on the inherent paradox of interchangeability. The findings reveal that while employee– volunteer interchangeability can be a core resource, a social value, and a driver of competitive advantage, it can also hinder organizational strategies and growth—especially for nonprofit social enterprise organizations.

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (6) ◽  
pp. 801-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onnolee Anne Nordstrom ◽  
Lloyd Steier

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to review the notion of social capital and its dominant dimensions and appraise the ways in which social capital and these dimensions have been applied within family business research. Second, to develop a number of suggestions of ways in which the concept could be extended, from a symbolic perspective, to provide greater insight into the complexity and heterogeneity of family systems. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper designed to stimulate new ways of thinking about social capital and the competitive advantage of family firms. Findings – This paper suggests that social capital has a symbolic dimension, which has been largely overlooked both within the field of family business and across social capital research more generally. Within the field of family business the authors connect this neglect to an over-emphasis on business theories. The authors offer ways in which incorporating a family theory – symbolic interactionism – could help to better understand family firms, social capital, and competitive advantage. Originality/value – This paper proposes an original approach to social capital. Guided by the notion of informed pluralism the paper integrates seemingly unrelated theories and identifies opportunities for new and innovative research. By espousing a symbolic interactionist approach the argument developed within this paper is valuable for helping to advance new ways of thinking about social capital and the competitive (dis)advantage of family firms.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 49-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Duraj

The social cooperative is one the newest organizational-legal forms of social enterprise. Its growth is caused by many determinants. One of them is the necessity of the prevention of social exclusion. Social cooperatives’ exceptionality is reflected in simultaneous realization of economic and social purposes but social goals owns the preference character. The paper is composed of three parts. Its first part contains deliberations about the concept itself and objectives of the social cooperative. They are presented against a wider background of human and social capital creation by enterprises. The second part deals with social and economic characteristics of the social cooperative. Finally, the third part contains fragmentary findings of empirical studies focused on the operation of social cooperatives in Poland. These findings cannot be treated, however, as sufficient to consider them a satisfactory recapitulation, and for this reason they should be treated as a preliminary diagnosis of analyzed problems accompanying the operation of social cooperatives in Poland.


2020 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Mitchell ◽  
Brendan Boyle ◽  
Stephen Nicholas

PurposeHow top management teams (TMTs) adapt and change to create and sustain competitive advantage is a fundamental challenge for human resource management studies. This paper examines the effects of TMT composition (human capital) and managerial ties (social capital) as factors that interactively explain managerial adaptive capability and organizational performance.Design/methodology/approachA unique survey dataset, derived through privileged access to organizational CEOs and CFOs of 101 Chinese organizations, was used to investigate a path between TMT functional diversity and organizational performance through adaptive managerial capability. Data were analysed using hierarchical multiple regression and Hayes (2012) PROCESS macro for SPSS.FindingsUnexpectedly, the results show that functional diversity has no direct positive effect on firm performance; however when functionally-diverse TMTs are embedded in external networks, there is a significant positive impact on managerial adaptive capability and, through this, competitive advantage.Research limitations/implicationsBy identifying TMT functional diversity as an important driver of adaptive managerial capability, contingent on managerial ties, this study addresses a significant research gap pertaining to how TMT characteristics potentially contribute to the development of a core organizational capability.Practical implicationsThe authors’ results highlight the importance of ensuring that recruitment into TMTs considers the complementarity of member functional background; however, benefit is only achieved when TMT members establish external ties with other organizations.Originality/valueThe authors’ findings provide evidence of the interactive effect of human and social capital on adaptive capability development and, through this, organizational performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (9/10) ◽  
pp. 719-737
Author(s):  
Ahmad Naderi ◽  
Leila Nasrolahi Vosta ◽  
Abolghasem Ebrahimi ◽  
Mohammad Reza Jalilvand

Purpose The exploration of performance determinants in social enterprises has gained increasing relevance among researchers and practitioners, particularly in rural tourism. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the contributions of transformational leadership and social entrepreneurship to the performance of social enterprises in the context of rural tourism. Further, the mediating roles of social capital, creativity and social value were investigated. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered through a survey of 168 employees of social enterprises operating in the rural tourism setting. Eight surveyors were sent out to conduct the survey. Data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) using AMOS 18.0. Findings The results of the SEM suggested that transformational leadership is positively associated with social value, social capital and performance of social enterprise. In addition, social entrepreneurship had a significant influence on social value, social capital and performance of social enterprise. Creativity and social value predicts the performance of social enterprise. Further, social capital was found to have a positive relationship with creativity. Finally, the mediating roles of social capital, creativity and social value were also confirmed. The findings thus highlight the power of the social value creation and social capital in the social enterprises operating in the rural destinations. Social implications The findings assert that social entrepreneurship and transformational leadership are key sources of social value creation, social capital and creativity in rural tourism context indicating the need for additional efforts on this kind of entrepreneurial activity. The findings can motivate policymakers to promote social entrepreneurship in rural tourism destinations as a means of stimulating bottom-up social capital and social value creation. Originality/value This study is among the first to examine the hypothesized relationships focusing on tourism social enterprises.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 249-262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikolaj Stanek ◽  
Alberto Veira

Using the Spanish National Immigrant Survey (NIS-2007) we identify the ethnic niches where workers from five main immigrant communities concentrate. We then implement logit models in order to assess how structural factors and human and social capital variables affect the odds of working in these niches. We observe that the strong segmentation of the Spanish labour market strongly favours the concentration of immigrants in certain occupational niches. Nevertheless, variables related to human and social capital still play a significant role in the placement of immigrant workers in different niches, all of which are not equally attractive. 


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 310-310
Author(s):  
Chih-Hsing Liu ◽  
◽  
Jeou-Shyan Horng ◽  
Sheng-Fang Chou ◽  
Yung-Chuan Huang ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (10) ◽  
pp. 1800-1816
Author(s):  
G.B. Kozyreva ◽  
T.V. Morozova ◽  
R.V. Belaya

Subject. The article provides considerations on the formation and development of a successful person model in the modern Russian society. Objectives. The study is an attempt to model a successful person in the Russian society, when the ideological subsystem of the institutional matrix is changing. Methods. The study relies upon the theory of institutional matrices by S. Kirdina, theories of human and social capital. We focus on the assumption viewing a person as a carrier of social capital, which conveys a success, socio-economic position, social status, civic activism, doing good to your family and the public, confidence in people and association with your region. The empirical framework comprises data of the sociological survey of the Russian population in 2018. The data were processed through the factor analysis. Results. We devised a model of a successful person in today's Russian society, which reveals that a success, first of all, depends on the economic wellbeing and has little relation to civic activism. The potential involvement (intention, possibility, preparedness) in the social and political life significantly dominates the real engagement of people. The success has a frail correlation with constituents of the social capital, such as confidence in people and doing good to the public. Conclusions and Relevance. Based on the socio-economic wellbeing, that is consumption, the existing model of a successful person proves to be ineffective. The sustainability of socio-economic wellbeing seriously contributes to the social disparity of opportunities, which drive a contemporary Russian to a success in life.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 1489-1496
Author(s):  
Branislav Stanisavljević

Research carried out in the last few years as the example of companies belonging to the category of medium-size enterprises has shown that, for example, typical enterprises, of the total number of data processed in information of importance for its business, seriously takes into consideration and process only 10% of the observed firms. It is justifiable to ask whether these 10% of the processed and analyzed business information can have an adequate potential or motive power to direct the organization to success that is measured by competitive advantages and on a sustainable basis? Or, the question can be formulated: what happens to the rest, mostly 90% of the information that the enterprise does not transform into a form suitable for business analysis and decision-making. It is precisely the task of business intelligence to find a way to utilize all the data collected and processed in the business decision-making process. In this regard, we can conclude that Business Intelligence is, in fact, the framework title for all tools and / or applications that will enable the collection, processing, analysis, distribution to decision-making bodies in the business system in order to derivate from this information valid business decisions - as the most important and / or most important task of the manager. Of course, from an economic point of view, the best decisions are management decisions that provide a lasting competitive advantage and achieve maximum financial performance. This means that business intelligence actually allows a more complete and / or comprehensive view of the overall business performance of all its parts and subsystems. But the system functions can be measured essential and positive economic and financial performance, as well as the position in the branch of the business to which it belongs, and wider, within the national economy. (Of course, today the boundaries of the national economy have become too crowded for many companies, bearing in mind globalization and competitiveness in the light of organization of work and business function). The advantage of business intelligence as a model, if accepted at the organization level, ensures that each subsystem in the organization receives precisely the information needed to make development decisions, but also decisions regarding operational activities. So, it should be born in mind that business intelligence does not imply that information is shared on some key words, on the contrary, the goal is to look at the context of the business, or in general, and that anyone in the further decision hierarchy can manage exactly the same information that is necessary for achieving excellent business performance. Because, if the insight into the information is not complete, the analysis is based on the description of individual parts, i.e. proving partial performance in the realization of individual information, which can certainly create a space for the loss of the expensive time and energy. Illustratively, if the view, or insight into the information, is not 100%, then all business decision-making is like the song of J.J. Zmaj "Elephant", about an elephant and a blindmen, where everyone feels and act only on the base of the experienced work, and brings judgment on what is what or what can be. As in this song for children, everyone thinks that he touches different animals and when they make claims about what they feel, everyone describes a completely different life. Therefore, business intelligence implies that information is fully considered and it is basically the basis or knowledge base, and therefore the basis of business excellence. In doing so, the main problem is how information is transformed into knowledge and based on it in business decision making. It is precisely in this segment that the main advantage of business intelligence is its contribution to the knowledge and business of the company based on power of knowledge. Therefore, for modern business conditions, it is characteristic that the management of the company is realized on the basis of partial knowledge about stakeholders (buyers, suppliers, competitors, shareholders, governments, institutional framework, legislation), and only a complete overview of managers at the highest level in all these partial interest groups allows managers to have a “boat” called the organization of labor leading a safe hand through the storm, Scile and Haribde threatens to endanger business, towards a calm sea and a safe harbor - called a sustainable competitive advantage based on power and knowledge.


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