AbstractSocial capital is the whole set of shared norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs that promote cooperation among individuals within the community and that has proved to be a key factor in explaining development processes. This article aims to provide an analytically reliable notion of social capital within the farming sector and a methodological tool for empirically measuring how social capital is accumulated at the farmer level. The theoretical framework proposed is based on the multidimensionality of the complex concept of social capital. Thus, to develop a comprehensive index for social capital, we identify three dimensions of the concept, structural, relational, and cognitive social capital, each one also comprising several subdimensions. This integrative approach permits creation of a composite indicator of the agricultural social capital accumulated at the farmer level, further identifying socioeconomic factors that influence its accumulation at that level. We empirically apply this methodological approach to farmers in Andalusia in southern Spain as a case study. This research provides an interesting starting point for informing policymakers about social capital and helping them implement the necessary programs to facilitate sustainable development in the agricultural sector.
Purpose This paper aims to help understand how community-based social entrepreneurs experience world-class "performance excellence" models and to explore the core values that enable social enterprises to become high-performance organizations.
Design/methodology/approach Underpinned by Mindsponge processes, the proposed conceptual framework critiques the Baldrige criteria for performance excellence (BCPE) model in a global south context. The mixed-methods study fosters an in-depth analysis. First, it validates the BCPE mechanism in community-based social enterprises (CBSEs) before identifying the significant core values and concepts of BCPE that influence CBSEs to achieve high performance.
Findings The BCPE, adapted from global north corporate principles and applied at a community level, can significantly develop global south organization performance excellence. Five core values and concepts from the 11 fundamental beliefs in driving performance excellence were found to support performance excellence in CBSE management. These values and concepts are "customer-focused excellence," "social responsibility," "systems perspective," "visionary leadership" and "focus on success."
Research limitations/implications First, factors influencing performance excellence are not limited to the core values elements discussed. Future research may clarify factors extracted from the "Process" category of BCPE to explore further how CBSEs can enhance their performance in a different formation path. Second, this study only considered the Thai-Phuan community in Pho Tak village, Nong Khai, Thailand, to represent as a single case study. However, different, clustered or contrasting CBSEs in other regions remain open for further exploration to enrich the knowledge of "performance excellence" in a community organization. Finally, a longitudinal study would be a welcome addition.
Practical implications The following must be considered. First is setting a clear direction: the organization's vision and mission, by purposeful design, should ensure that CBSE managers are leading by example and demonstrating the importance of social and environmental value creation. Second is developing institutional culture: fundamental core values focused predominantly on "customer-focused excellence" and "social responsibility" encourage collaboration by "working together to drive success". Third is developing integrated management system: CBSEs need to ensure that the management systems can collaborate and complement each component to create performance excellence. Fourth is creating a learning organization: CBSEs need to create a culture of continuous learning through data collection, measurement, analysis and modification.
Social implications This study clarifies that the implementation of BCPE is crucial to the establishment of performance excellence at both macro- and micro-level organizations. According to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the fundamental drivers of BCPE are the same for all types of organizations and in all sectors, whether in the private sector, education, health care or government (Blazey and Grizzell, 2021). By applying the Baldrige excellence model at the community level, this study found that CBSE can similarly strive for excellence and improved performance. This can lead to strengthened services, increased productivity and enhanced quality of life for the community.
Originality/value This study provides a novel viewpoint on the Baldrige paradigm. Expressly, BCPE is compatible with global south community-based organizations to enhance performance excellence. Its essential contribution demonstrates that Baldrige model concepts are more widespread within smaller and underdeveloped territories than imagined. The recent (post-study) inclusion of "Community" as an independent sector in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Awards validates the research findings and recommendations proposed by this study.
AbstractThis article considers the role and importance of the intersubjective practice space created between social workers and unaccompanied young females (UYFs)—girls and young women under eighteen years of age, who arrive in a country, not in the care of a parent or guardian, and claim asylum in their own right. The voices of UYFs are under-represented in the literature and there is very little research which considers social work with this marginalised group. Through a study of how UYFs and practitioners in England experienced and constructed each other during their everyday practice encounters, we discuss the potential of the practice space for creating mutual understandings and enabling positive changes. Analysis revealed that their subjective and affective experience of their encounters and of each other, both as individual humans and as representations of particular categories (asylum-seeker/looked-after child and professional helper/agent of the state), influenced how they engaged, communicated, co-constructed understandings of each other and viewed the process and outcomes of the social work contact. We argue for the importance of practice encounter spaces, their distinctiveness from what is written in policy and law and their potential as a site for creativity and change.
Increasing recognition of interdependencies of the health of humans, other organisms and ecosystems, and of their importance to socio-ecological systems, necessitates application of integrative concepts such as One Health and EcoHealth. These concepts open new perspectives for research and practice but also generate confusion and divergent opinion, prompting new theories, and call for empirical clarification and evaluation. Through a semi-systematic evaluation of knowledge generation in scientific publications (comprised of literature reviews, conceptual models and analyses of communities of practice), we show how integrative concepts and approaches to health evolve and are adopted. Our findings indicate that while their contexts, goals and rationales vary, integrative concepts of health essentially arise from shared interests in living systems. Despite recent increased attention to ecological and societal aspects of health including broader sustainability issues, the focus remains anthropocentric and oriented towards biomedicine. Practices reflect and in turn transform these concepts, which together with practices also influence ways of integration. Overarching narratives vary between optimism and pessimism towards integrated health and knowledge. We conclude that there is an urgent need for better, coherent and more deeply integrative health concepts, approaches and practices to foster the well-being of humans, other animals and ecosystems. Consideration of these concepts and practices has methodological and political importance, as it will transform thinking and action on both society and nature and specifically can enrich science and practice, expanding their scope and linking them better. Transdisciplinary efforts are crucial to developing such concepts and practices to properly address the multiple facets of health and to achieve their appropriate integration for the socio-ecological systems at stake. We propose the term "transdisciplinary health" to denote the new approaches needed.
DOI : . ; The principal component of a European social model was considered to be convergence of social outcomes toward the top. However, the latest economic and social trends are no longer characterized by a steady narrowing of the gap between the more and lesser advanced countries. While all European countries were affected by the economic crisis of 2008 and a coordinated response was put into place in 2009, since 2010, we see a growing divergence between two groups of countries in Europe. The first group, mainly in the North of Europe, concentrated around Germany, Austria, the Nordic countries, along with certain Eastern European countries having close economic ties to Germany, has steadily emerged from the crisis and resumed a positive economic and social path. The second group, however, comprised mainly of the Southern and Eastern periphery, remains stuck in negative economic and social situations following the crisis. This chapter demonstrates the initial economic convergence, followed by a stark divergence in certain economic and social outcomes after the crisis of 2008. It reviews the various explanations for these divergences. Finally, it considers the political outcomes of this economic and social dualization. We argue that despite the seemingly uniform rise of populist anti-EU challengers across Europe, these challengers differ significantly in the grievances they raise. Radical right parties are dominant in the center, while radical left parties outperform the radical right in the periphery, a dynamic that constitutes a second, political, dualization of Europe.
DOI : . ; The principal component of a European social model was considered to be convergence of social outcomes toward the top. However, the latest economic and social trends are no longer characterized by a steady narrowing of the gap between the more and lesser advanced countries. While all European countries were affected by the economic crisis of 2008 and a coordinated response was put into place in 2009, since 2010, we see a growing divergence between two groups of countries in Europe. The first group, mainly in the North of Europe, concentrated around Germany, Austria, the Nordic countries, along with certain Eastern European countries having close economic ties to Germany, has steadily emerged from the crisis and resumed a positive economic and social path. The second group, however, comprised mainly of the Southern and Eastern periphery, remains stuck in negative economic and social situations following the crisis. This chapter demonstrates the initial economic convergence, followed by a stark divergence in certain economic and social outcomes after the crisis of 2008. It reviews the various explanations for these divergences. Finally, it considers the political outcomes of this economic and social dualization. We argue that despite the seemingly uniform rise of populist anti-EU challengers across Europe, these challengers differ significantly in the grievances they raise. Radical right parties are dominant in the center, while radical left parties outperform the radical right in the periphery, a dynamic that constitutes a second, political, dualization of Europe.
La medición de la pobreza ha sido investigada principalmente desde el enfoque unidimensional que estudia los aspectos económicos. Sin embargo, desde 2010 cobra auge el enfoque multidimensional, el cual incluye conceptos y mediciones relacionados con el bienestar individual y familiar y la posibilidad de diagnosticar necesidades para ser atendidas mediante políticas públicas. Por eso, es relevante describir cómo es la cobertura periodística de la pobreza en los medios de comunicación social, mediante la caracterización de las publicaciones académicas referidas al tema. Esta investigación analiza los documentos hallados en los sistemas de información Dialnet Plus y Scielo desde 2008 hasta 2020. Con el análisis de contenido de seis categorías, se obtienen los siguientes resultados: existe negación, minimización, sensacionalismo, amarillismo y espectacularidad en los medios de comunicación social; la pobreza es un tema esporádico porque aparece relacionada a eventos naturales y la violencia; la agenda periodística está referida a la inflación y la canasta básica; el género periodístico predominante es la noticia y existe una imagen estereotipada y descontextualizada para identificar a personas en condición de pobreza. Se concluye que están emergiendo estudios de la cobertura periodística con enfoque multidimensional.
PurposeThe aim of this paper is to review the recent corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature in China, which has the world's largest developing economy. Through discussions and critical review, the objective is to suggest future directions for CSR research in this country.Design/methodology/approachThe paper starts with a review of recent CSR literature in the mainland, followed by an in‐depth critique of two major Chinese CSR studies conducted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.FindingsIn China, much of the CSR literature is conceptual, descriptive, or argumentative in nature. Proper research methodologies are not systematically applied in some studies, and supporting theories are lacking. Besides, self‐developed indicator systems, rather than internationally adopted systems, are used as the mainstream measurement tools in research focusing on CSR performance evaluation. In general, CSR research in China has just got started and has a long way to go.Originality/valueRecent reviews of CSR literature have concentrated on emerging economies, particularly Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and so on. This paper is one of the first reviews of CSR studies in mainland China. It contributes to understanding the development of Chinese CSR research. After the review and discourse, several research questions are suggested for future research.
Relationships are central to organizing, work, and organizations. Yet, in many instances, relationships do not build themselves, and third-party actors are often needed to intervene in situations, persuade individuals, and facilitate connections across disconnected actors in organizations. Little is known about the strategies through which third-party actors can broker relationships across what are considered to be intractable social boundaries—membership in stigmatized or nonstigmatized social identity-based groups. We build a process theory of what we call "bridgework," the strategy used by third-party agents, intermediaries, and allies to bridge by shifting value-related perceptions about actors on the other side of social identity-based divides. More specifically, we focus on a stigmatizing social identity that can create boundaries that are often reinforced through informal network ties. Based on interviews, participatory observation, and archival data with job coaches for adults with autism spectrum disorders and related developmental disabilities, we showcase a model of bridgework—a combination of internal and external strategies across three stages (adding, stabilizing, and maintaining perceptions of value) to facilitate relationships between stigmatized and nonstigmatized members of organizations. We discuss how our grounded model contributes to the rich traditions of research on stigma, brokerage, disability studies, positive relationships, and compassion in organizations. Funding: This project was supported by a Smeal Small Research Grant in Spring 2015.
While there is renewed interest in earnings differentials between social classes, the contribution of social class to overall earnings inequality across countries and net of compositional effects remains largely uncharted territory. This paper uses data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions to assess earnings differentials between social classes (as measured by ESeC) and the role of between-class inequality in overall earnings inequality across 30 European countries. We find that there is substantial variation in earnings differences between social classes across countries. Countries with higher levels of between-class inequality tend to display higher levels of overall earnings inequality, but this relationship is far from perfect. Even with highly aggregated class measures, between-class inequality accounts for a non-negligible share of total earnings inequality (between 15 and 25% in most countries). Controlling for observed between-class differences in composition shows that these account for much of the observed between-class earnings inequality, while in most countries between-class differences in returns to observed compositional variables do not play a major role. In all these respects we find considerable variation across countries, implying that both the size of between-class differences in earnings and the primary mechanisms that produce these class differences vary substantially between European countries.
AbstractResearch shows consistently that social ties are important for longevity, and they may be particularly important during adolescence. An absence of social ties, or social isolation, during adolescence may adversely affect long-term health and wellbeing. While prior research has examined associations between isolation from friends and long-term health, and having no siblings and mortality, no study (of which we are aware) considers jointly both the role of having no friends and no siblings, nor more generally with whom adolescents spend time, and the risk of premature mortality. This paper extends the literature by drawing on data from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study to examine the association between different types of social isolation during adolescence (i.e., an absence of friends, siblings, and time with other adolescents) and the risk of premature mortality by midlife. Results suggest that having no siblings, being unliked at school, and spending (mostly) no time with other adolescents, increases the risk of premature mortality. The association between being unliked and premature mortality was attenuated by demographic and adolescent characteristics. Consistent with our expectations, net of a robust set of covariates, adolescents who had no siblings and mostly spent no time with other adolescents (i.e., isolates) were the group most vulnerable to premature mortality by midlife. However, this was only true for females.
