Animating business relationships through community social capital: an insight into conviviality

Simone Guercini,Silvia Ranfagni

doi:10.1108/jec-06-2020-0109

Abstract

PurposeAs conviviality can nurture community social capital, this paper aims to investigate how such capital can give rise to economic behaviour in terms of developing business relationships.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical analysis was based on case studies of Italian businesses recognised as active communities that periodically organise convivial activities to fuel reciprocal collaboration. The case studies were constructed by combining a collection of secondary data, in-depth interviews and participant observations.FindingsThis paper shows how: community social capital in convivium emerges from self-narrative stimulated by ritual practices; social trust mobilising a convivial social capital is fuelled by knowledge generated through sharing and empathic relationships; community-based social relations embed business relations and if mediated, community-based business relations can also embed a community business.Originality/valueThe originality of the paper is twofold as it contributes: to understanding how conviviality can be used as a strategic tool for entrepreneurs to develop business relationships from convivial relations; and to finding intersection points between studies on business relationships from social capital and studies on entrepreneurship from community social capital.

Highlights

Conviviality is often associated with the values of friendship, union and hospitality
Our paper is organised as follows: firstly, we examine the concept of conviviality and its interdisciplinary origins; we investigate conviviality in managerial studies and starting from the assumption that conviviality can animate business relations from the community social capital it fuels, we have explored the links that exist between community social capital and business relationships
Given that through social trust, community-based social relations embed economic behaviours just as business relationships are embedded in social relations, we investigate how community-based social relations embed business relations by exploring how social trust mobilises a convivial social capital impacting business relationships (RQ2) and which business relationships are established (RQ3)

Summary

Introduction

Conviviality is often associated with the values of friendship, union and hospitality. It is an articulated concept, which can be explored from different angles; the main contributions to its understanding come from the fields of anthropology philosophy and sociology. They conceive conviviality as “cum-vivere” around positive experiences, as “cum-vivere” despite diversities and as “cum-vivere” in an authentic way. In this paper we analyse conviviality according to these angles, contextualising it with management issues. As conviviality can nurture community social capital, we intend to investigate how such capital gives rise to economic behaviour in terms of developing business relationships. Studies show that community social capital has an impact on entrepreneurship when it emerges from social

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Discussion

Conclusion