Working paper
Does Ethnic Diversity Affect Social Capital in the Russian Context?
The paper demonstrates the potential of the stochastic frontier-based methods of performance assessment of non-profit associations. They are commonly used for productivity analysis and could serve as an adequate tool for such assessment, especially when dealing with numerous non-profits pursuing identical and clearly identified objectives. A case in point are homeowners associations (HOA), which are formed within apartment buildings to manage common property. Data was collected by a survey of 82 HOAs in Russias national capital Moscow and a large industrial city of Perm. Different techniques and robust checks are applied, exogenous parameters that influence HOA efficiency are revealed. Among those, physical conditions of the housing stock and ability of tenants to resolve the collective action problem in operating housing infrastructure were shown to be of primary importance. Overall, HOA, despite of their appeal and successful performance in developed nations, are not necessarily a superior option in countries and societies where civic capacity is in short supply, and housing stock suffers from wear and tear.
The article examines differences between two Russian regions – Moscow and Bashkortostan – through the following socio-psychological indicators: perceived social capital, trust, civil identity, life satisfaction, and economic attitudes.
The book includes proceedings of the conference “Business. Society. Human” (October 30–31, 2013, Moscow) organized by National Research University Higher School of Economics. The purpose of the conference: interdisciplinary analysis of actual problems of studying business in the social sciences: the relationship between business and society; social capital and trust; business and corporate culture; individual, group and organization in business; problems and prospects of business education and business consulting, etc. The book present the results of researches of trust and social capital carried out in various countries in Europe, Asia and in Russia. Authors are well-known sociologists, psychologists and economists. The results of these researches were presented at the conference. The papers are published as they were submitted by the author.
The article is focused upon business education students perceptions of career success and its determinants. Empirical base of research is formed by a survey of 222 business school students in the three Universities of Moscow, attending MBA, EMBA and DBA programs. The students are classified into five groups on the basis of their perceptions of success. These groups also differ by perceptions of success determinants, ethical principles and by motivation behind joining an MBA program.
The concepts of social networks, social capital and trust play an increasingly central role in the social sciences. They have become indispensable conceptual tools for the analysis of post-industrial/late-modern societies, which are characterized by such features as the relative decline of formal hierarchies, the development of flexible social arrangements in the sphere of production and the extreme mobility of capital. This is the first book to study the interrelationships between these important concepts both theoretically and empirically. Drawing on empirical investigations from a range of diverse European social contexts, the contributors develop an economic sociology that builds on and extends established theoretical perspectives. The book opens with an introduction to the theoretical ideas: relating social capital to reciprocity, trust and social networks in line with current debates. The authors go on to discuss the concept of social embededdness, addressing the economic effects of social capital by examining the network and trust foundations of labour markets and investigating the structural limits of trusting networks. They conclude with an exploration of the impact of networking and the functioning of trust and social capital on the economic arrangements and performance of nascent capitalist economies in post-Communist Europe. This thematically unified collection by a team of distinguished contributors from across Europe provides an innovative and distinctive contribution to an expanding area of research.
The book’s stated objective is to uncover context, “how social capital interacts with social institutions.” It is part of a new wave of research on social capital that, dissatisfied with both macro analyses limited to societal patterns and micro analyses limited to actors’ conditions, seeks to understand the operation of networks at the meso-level: how institutions and organizations structure the transfer of resources across networks. It purports to make both theoretical and methodological contributions, the first by developing the concept of “institutional logics,” the latter by “casting diverse contextual settings as ‘generators’ of social relations”, and studying these contexts from multiple methodological perspectives. (from a review by M. Small)