Social Capital Acquisition Research Articles

Reexamining the Promise of Parent Participation in Special Education: An Analysis of Cultural and Social Capital

Highly regulated parent participation in special education requires both parents and teachers to use cultural and social capital relative to education legislation, disability, and parenting. Examined through a Bourdieuian analytical lens, data from focus groups and individual interviews with families provide examples of the salience of disability in the acquisition and use of cultural and social capital in educational contexts, serving to both reify dominance and support individual agency. [special education, Bourdieu, cultural capital, disability]

Tacit knowledge acquisition – a social capital approach

Social capital has evolved from an interdisciplinary standpoint. Recently, interests over it have been instigated by entrepreneur literatures because of the arising need to understand its contribution to quality of resource-based management, specifically knowledge-based resources, which provides a great possibility for a successful firm performance. Nevertheless, knowledge and information, just like social capital, are multidimensional in sources and consequences. Scholars have differentiated between tacit and explicit knowledge to clearly present their argument that these two types of knowledge fit various networks of social relations for optimal performance. Therefore, an in-depth investigation of the correlation between social capital and tacit knowledge acquisition is essential to the establishment of a framework that would shed light on the implications of social relations in the corporate world.

Firm resources, opportunity recognition, entrepreneurial orientation and performance: the case of Russian women-led family businesses

This paper proposes a framework for studying the roles of entrepreneurial orientation, financial and social capital acquisition and opportunity recognition and their influence on performance expectations on a large sample of women-led family and non-family owned businesses in Russia. Based on our findings, it is possible to conclude that the ability of women entrepreneurs to identify opportunities and thereby determine and exploit the richness of resources in their environment that are aligned with their entrepreneurial strategy is crucial to the subsequent performance of their firms. The impact of being a family business, however, was not shown to be a critical factor in the performance of women-led firms. While much work remains, these findings give scholars and policy makers a better understanding of the critical resources, opportunities and strategies that can influence the growth and performance of female led family firms within transitional economies. Study limitations and future research opportunities are discussed.

Multinational Firm Strategy and Global Poverty Alleviation

Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) strategies recognize for the first time that global companies can contribute to the alleviation of worldwide poverty by adopting non-traditional and mostly non-Western models of business involvement. It is now widely accepted that poverty and hunger arise not because there are no goods or food, but because billions of people lack income to purchase them. It is also a common belief that the private sector can play a significant role in lifting the poor from the margins of the market system. This would require strategic and mindset shifts in global companies leading to a very different path where their operations intersect with the greater good of communities, societies, and nations. Successful engagement in the untapped market space at the base of the global income pyramid calls for completely new capabilities, responsibilities, and values. Alliance building with local and non-traditional partners, promoting bottom-up solutions and understanding social sustainability are some of these new managerial challenges. This article reflects on some of the critical challenges of global companies and global managers in their strategic engagement at the BOP and explores how large firms can become involved in the pursuit of social capital acquisition and how new approaches of public–private partnerships in reformulating the profit-performance links, the downscaling of products or services without compromising their quality and integrity, the bridging of the information and infrastructure gap, educating, and empowering the poor, together with innovations through technological adaptations can be managed through the embracing of new mindsets. A number of frameworks are presented with a view to contributing to the debate and outlining new value objectives for global companies.

Realizing the Intended Outcomes of Brown

Equitable access to social mobility and advancement through education were among the intended outcomes of the Brown v. Board of Education case and related legislation. Despite this, scholars have illuminated the ways in which colleges, universities, and schools continually disadvantage African American male students. Although the evidence overwhelmingly confirms that many of the goals and promises of Brown remain unfulfilled, a different perspective is offered in this article. Specifically, ways in which high-achieving African American male undergraduates gain, negotiate, and benefit from access to powerful social networks on predominantly White campuses are presented herein. Findings from interviews with 32 high achievers at six large public research universities show a clear nexus between campus leadership, active out-of-class engagement, and the acquisition of social capital. The ways in which the participants leveraged their access to social networks and activated their social capital for goal actualization during and immediately after college are also discussed.

Comparing Educational Trajectories of Two Chinese Students and One Latina Student, A Social Capital Approach

This qualitative study compares and analyzes the social network experiences of two working-class Chinese students from immigrant families (Sally, Alex) to those of one working-class Latina student from an immigrant family (Elizabeth). Theory holds that these students would have difficulty obtaining educational resources and support (i.e., social capital) to hurdle educational discrimination (Biddle, 2001). They would also have difficulty devising post-secondary education plans. As is argued throughout, it is Chinese students' presence in the more resource-full networks and organizations that facilitate their acquisition of social capital. This bears on their greater educational trajectories. The Latina student's experience contrasts theirs. Her limited social capital complicates her ability to hurdle educational discrimination. This reduces her high school opportunities and her post-secondary educational opportunities.

Lower Prices Improve Diversity in the Performing Arts: Is This True and Does It Matter?

Participation and attendance in the arts can foster social capital, economic regeneration and skill acquisition. For these reasons, encouraging greater arts participation and attendance among disadvantaged groups became part of the New Labour strategy to promote neighbourhood renewal and tackle social exclusion. It is, however, far from clear what policies are best suited to achieve the aim of greater involvement in the arts. One policy option is to award subsidies to lower admission fees. Using 14 years of data from the UK Family Expenditure Survey, the article examines whether lower prices stimulate attendance at live performances overall and among low-income groups in particular. Findings indicate that while ticket prices influence attendance generally, the response of different income groups is similar, with a 10 per cent increase in price accompanied by a 9 per cent drop in demand. This means that, while price controls may be effective in increasing overall attendance levels among all groups in the population, including among low-income groups, they may not prove adequate whenever the main aim is to reduce the gap in participation across social groups.

Social capital and knowledge acquisition in professional-client relationships

This paper examines the role of social capital in professional-client relationships. We consider exploring the effects of social capital on the creation of human capital, a subject which is worthwhile investigating within all professions. In this paper, we concentrate on what are known as the structural and attributive dimensions of social capital and aim to understand their effects on the knowledge acquisition of professional practitioners. We analyse the association between social capital and human capital (i.e., knowledge acquisition) in the context of the lawyer-client relationship. Through the application of social capital theory, this paper seeks to advance our knowledge of the relations between professionals and clients. More importantly, the study contributes to improving our understanding of the role of social capital in influencing a lawyer's ability to retain and win new clients.

Lonely at the top

The Nordic countries are often noted for their high level of gender equality. The media sector is no exception and it is true that almost 50 percent of Swedish journalists are female. However, female presence at the senior level of media organizations remains much lower. This article analyses the Swedish media elite from a gender perspective. It is based on a survey study among all top-level managers (the Swedish national institutional elites) in seven different social fields and interprets the results by drawing upon Bourdieu’s theories on habitus, capital and field and Toril Moi’s ‘appropriation’ of Bourdieu (in the essay ‘Appropriating Bourdieu’, in What is a Woman? And Other Essays). Differences and similarities between men and women in the media elite are identified and analysed, including differences regarding social background and the amount and type of capital they have accumulated when reaching the top. The main conclusion is that the acquisition of social capital is of major significance to counterbalance the negative capital of femaleness in reaching a senior management position in the media.

Senior women managers’ transition to entrepreneurship

PurposeThis paper aims to explore the phenomenon of senior women managers leaving corporate organisations to start their own companies. Women's advancement to senior management roles is facilitated by the acquisition of human capital and social capital. Female ex‐corporate managers leverage personal accumulations of knowledge, skills, relationships and networks when starting and growing new ventures. A conceptual framework of “embedded career capital” accrued during past experiences and transferable to the individuals’ new entrepreneurial ventures is put forward.Design/methodology/approachStructured, in‐depth interviews with ten female entrepreneurs who recently left senior management positions in large UK corporations to start their own ventures support a spectrum from embedded career capital which is transferable and value‐creating to embodied career capital consisting of immobile, non‐rent‐generating accumulations.FindingsSenior women managers leverage “embedded career capital”, human capital and social capital accumulated from past experiences, when founding and growing their own businesses. Embedded career capital is mobile and value‐generating to the women's new start‐ups. In contrast, embodied capital is not capable of generating rents outside the arena in which it was developed and not transferable to the new venture.Research limitations/implicationsThis exploratory study is based on ten interviews, and reveals practical implications for both senior women managers eager to advance their careers as entrepreneurs and companies keen to retain these women.Originality/valueThe results provide support for the new concept of embedded career capital. This paper is one of the first to examine how women account for the use of human capital and social capital in the transition from corporate management to own ventures.

Migration, return and socio‐economic change in West Africa: the role of family

AbstractThis paper seeks to analyse the influence of migrants' families on return and the transfer of financial, human and social capital by West African migrants who have lived in Europe and North America. Based on a survey of over 600 ‘elite’ and less‐skilled return migrants to Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, as well as qualitative research with migrants remaining in London and Paris, the paper argues that families play an important role in return migration, remittances, and aspects of human, social and financial capital acquisition and investment. Using Cerase's typology of return migration, the analysis seeks to discriminate between migrants whose return decisions were affected by their families – considered as ‘return of conservatism’ – and those who made individual return decisions – considered as ‘return of innovation’. The findings reveal that the relationship between the type of return (and extent of family involvement in this decision), and the extent of financial, human and social capital transfers, varies between countries and across groups of migrants. Although those whose return is influenced by their families might be considered to have made more ‘conservative’ return decisions, this group was found to be more likely to have transferred financial capital to their home country, and more likely to have maintained social capital gained abroad after their return. They were also as likely as ‘innovative’ returnees to have promoted changes in family life or in the workplace. The paper concludes by exploring several policy implications. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Prerequisites for the creation of social capital and subsequent knowledge acquisition in corporate venture capital

Past research has largely treated inter-organizational social capital as an exogenously determined asset. In this paper, the authors build and test a model on the effects of the initial conditions for the creation and leveraging of social capital in corporate venture capital v - v portfolio firm dyads. Using contemporary survey data from US portfolio firms, it is shown that complementarities and financial incentives constitute important initial conditions for the creation of social interaction and subsequent knowledge acquisition. While extending the understanding of social capital formation, the findings also have important practical implications for technology-based new firms planning their growth and financing strategies.

Social capital, knowledge acquisition, and knowledge exploitation in young technology‐based firms

AbstractEmploying a sample of 180 entrepreneurial high‐technology ventures based in the United Kingdom, we examine the effects of social capital in key customer relationships on knowledge acquisition and knowledge exploitation. Building on the relational view and on social capital and knowledge‐based theories, we propose that social capital facilitates external knowledge acquisition in key customer relationships and that such knowledge mediates the relationship between social capital and knowledge exploitation for competitive advantage. Our results indicate that the social interaction and network ties dimensions of social capital are indeed associated with greater knowledge acquisition, but that the relationship quality dimension is negatively associated with knowledge acquisition. Knowledge acquisition is, in turn, positively associated with knowledge exploitation for competitive advantage through new product development, technological distinctiveness, and sales cost efficiency. Further, our results provide evidence that knowledge acquisition plays a mediating role between social capital and knowledge exploitation. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Family Demography, Social Theory, and Investment in Social Capital

The analytic models used by family demographers would be strengthened by the concept of social capital, placed in the context of social exchange theory. Using that concept to designate resources that emerge from social ties, the authors advance five propositions: 1) social capital is a multidimensional attribute of an individual; 2) the dimensions of social capital are the number of relationships a person has, their quality (strength), and the resources available through those relationships; 3) group membership and interaction facilitate the development of social capital; 4) the structural properties of groups influence the development of social capital; and 5) the acquisition and maintenance of social capital is a major motivator of human behavior. The formation of sexual partnerships, the birth and rearing of children, and both intragenerational and intergenerational transfers constitute major forms of investment in social capital in virtually all societies.

What Did You Do Today? Children's Use of Time, Family Composition, and the Acquisition of Social Capital

Using time-diary data collected from a statewide probability sample of California children aged 3-11, we examine the amount of time children spend on four activities presumed to affect their cognitive and development-reading or being read to, watching TV, studying, and doing household chores-and how that time varies by four family characteristics: parental education, maternal employment, number of parents in the household, and family size. As expected, children of highly educated parents study and read more and watch TV less. Contrary to expectations, children of mothers who are employed part-time watch significantly less TV than children of mothers at home full-time. Otherwise, there are few significant differences by mother's extent of paid employment, the presence of a father, and the number of siblings. Thus, the results reinforce the thesis that parental education is the predominant predictor of the and capital investments that children receive. Key Words: children, family composition, time use. Changes in the American family have resulted in a growing uneasiness about the well-being of children in the United States. Some researchers note how the increased educational attainment of parents and declining family size bode well for children's economic security (Bianchi, 1990; Haveman & Wolfe, 1993; Hernandez, 1993). At the same time, others have emphasized trends like the increase in single parenting that result in more poverty and undermine children's economic wellbeing (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). Although the research on maternal employment has been mixed and inconclusive (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1982; Presser, 1995), there continues to be concern about the potentially negative effects of working mothers. Debate continues over whether the dramatic increase in mothers' labor force participation and more single parenting have diminished parental attention to children and eroded children's chances of success in school and in other arenas of life. Sociologists have emphasized the importance of parental transmission of cognitive ability and academic expectations for the educational and occupational achievement of children (Duncan, Featherman, & Duncan, 1972; Sewell & Hauser, 1980). The notion of human capital, a term sociologists borrowed from neoclassical economists, infuses our understanding of the goals of many childhood activities, particularly schooling. In this view, accumulating skills in childhood is of paramount importance, and understanding what impedes and what enhances development of competencies that will translate into success later in life becomes an important focus of the study of children and childhood activities. Sociologists, particularly James Coleman (1988), have broadened the economist's notion of capital to encompass what has been called social capital. Social like increases children's future productivity, but investments depend on the relationships in which children are embedded. So, for example, a child may have a talented and highly educated parent and thus be genetically endowed with great potential for cognitive development, but interactions with that parent are needed to convey encouragement and expectations. Social interaction with parents thus can create resources that will enhance the child's realization of his or her potential for achievement and later success. Parental resources also place children in certain types of communities and educational environments where interactions can provide further capital to facilitate good child outcomes. McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) argue persuasively that the dysfunctional outcomes of children raised with one parent-such as the higher likelihood of dropping out of high school, having an early teen birth, and having difficulty getting established in the labor market-result not only from the poorer economic circumstances of these children but also from the diminished interaction these children have with parents (especially fathers). …