Diversity of Social Enterprise Models in South Korea

In this paper, we analyse the emergence and development of social enterprise in South Korea. Our purpose is to show how different broad, consensual and successive conceptions of social enterprise—the so-called meta-models—have generated a dynamic and complex environment which includes a variety of models of social enterprise. Based on multiple data sources, including interviews, documents, statistics and field research, we illustrate the diversity of Korean social enterprise models by using the EMES ideal-type as a conceptual framework that leads us to analyse the social, economic and governance dimensions of each type of social enterprise. This research suggests that the social enterprise phenomenon should not be limited to its expressed contents or to an excessively strict legal or economic definition. It eventually contributes to advancing our understanding on social enterprise by showing that the definitions and concepts of social enterprise can be diverse across different social, economic and political contexts. For this reason, building a universal typology that can embrace social enterprises in different national contexts is by far a challenging task.     

The Impact of (In)effective Listening on Interpersonal Interactions

Most reviews of “listening research” are narrow in scope, focusing only on research published by listening and communication scholars. Given that unique contributions to listening have been provided by scholars from disciplines as varied as psychology, anthropology, management, and linguistics, this review explores connections and divergences that span the academic landscape. After briefly introducing and reviewing listening related research from three primary areas—information processing, competent behavior, and individual differences—we offer a heuristic framework that ties these lines of study together and provides a structure for assessing and generating new listening research. A concluding section suggests lines of future investigation.     

Cultural capital in educational research: A critical assessment

In this article, we assess how the concept of cultural capital has been imported into the English language, focusing on educational research. We argue that a dominant interpretation of cultural capital has coalesced with two central premises. First, cultural capital denotes knowledge of or facility with “highbrow” aesthetic culture. Secondly, cultural capital is analytically and causally distinct from other important forms of knowledge or competence (termed “technical skills,” “human capital,” etc.). We then review Bourdieu’s educational writings to demonstrate that neither of these premises is essential to his understanding of cultural capital. In the third section, we discuss a set of English-language studies that draw on the concept of cultural capital, but eschew the dominant interpretation. These serve as the point of departure for an alternative definition. Our definition emphasizes Bourdieu’s reference to the capacity of a social class to “impose” advantageous standards of evaluation on the educational institution. We discuss the empirical requirements that adherence to such a definition entails for researchers, and provide a brief illustration of the intersection of institutionalized evaluative standards and the educational practices of families belonging to different social classes. Using ethnographic data from a study of social class differences in family-school relationships, we show how an African-American middle-class family exhibits cultural capital in a way that an African-American family below the poverty level does not.     

Alfred Schütz — Ökonom und/oder Soziologe?

In 1996, Hartmut Esser published a rational choice model of the “Definition of the Situation” in this journal (KZfSS 48, 1996: 1–34). This work is based on his economic interpretation of the theory of Alfred Schutz, a co-founder of interpretative sociology. This paper analyses Hartmut Esser’s attempt to reconstruct the sociological concept of the definition of the situation by means of economic theory. It shows that Esser’s misinterpretations and abridgements of the theory of Alfred Schutz (this is especially true of the interactive aspects) lead to considerable discrepancies between Esser and Schutz in modelling the definition of the situation. In his economic modelling of the definition of the situation Esser fails to conceive the sociological essence of this concept (the construction of sense structures) because he formulates a model of rational behavior in accordance with the economic tradition. Schutz, however, advocates the construction of rational models of human behavior, which also includes “irrational” (not utility-maximizing) or “sense”-directed behavior.     

Entrepreneurial In‐migration and Neoendogenous Rural Development

The social, cultural, and economic transitions in rural areas across the globe lead us to critique the traditional “top‐down” or “bottom‐up” distinction as being outdated for contemporary rural policy. In Europe and the United States in particular, high rates of counterurbanization heighten the need for new ways of thinking about rural development. To address this, we describe the emergence of neoendogenous development theories in the United Kingdom and elucidate further on the economic implications of this approach for rural development. In particular, we examine the role of local and extralocal networks and population flows as facilitators of neoendogenous development based on our independent studies in northeast England and northern Scotland. This approach highlights the importance of diverse forms of capital in rural economies and examines the role of social networks in the utilization of these resources. In‐migrant business owners are a valuable research focus as they provide a link between the “local” and the “extralocal,” allowing greater insight into the creation and evolution of network ties in relation to economic activity in rural areas.     

A Social Capital Basis for Environmental Concern: Evidence from Northern New England*

This study, based on a random‐digit‐dialing telephone survey of adults in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, uses ordinary least squares regression to examine a relatively neglected element in the sociological literature on environmental concern, namely, the influence of an individual's social capital on the formation of environmental attitudes. We argue that it is those individuals with a greater diversity of social connections who are most likely to be influenced by ecological perspectives grounded in conservation and environmental protection. Controlling for other theoretically relevant variables, we regress an index of environmental concern that gives special emphasis to environmental‐economic trade‐offs on our measures of relational and community social capital. While confirming much of the earlier work in this area, our model provides evidence that connections to other people play an important role in determining individual concern for the environment. Specifically, the number of respondents' “weak ties”—that is, not their closest relationships—and the average occupational status of respondents' social ties, in general, were both positively correlated with environmental concern. Additionally, one of our three measures of community social capital, the number of visits from friends over the past month, was statistically significant and negatively correlated with environmental concern.     

A Theory of Access*

Abstract The term “access” is frequently used by property and natural resource analysts without adequate definition. In this paper we develop a concept of access and examine a broad set of factors that differentiate access from property. We define access as “the ability to derive benefits from things,” broadening from property's classical definition as “the right to benefit from things.” Access, following this definition, is more akin to “a bundle of powers” than to property's notion of a “bundle of rights.” This formulation includes a wider range of social relationships that constrain or enable benefits from resource use than property relations alone. Using this framing, we suggest a method of access analysis for identifying the constellations of means, relations, and processes that enable various actors to derive benefits from resources. Our intent is to enable scholars, planners, and policy makers to empirically “map” dynamic processes and relationships of access.     

The concept of a “merit good” the ethical dimension in economic theory and the history of economic thought or the transformation of economics into socio-economics

The purpose of this paper is to defend the concept of a “merit good” and to expand its application. This is achieved by using a Kantian philosophical argument applied to the writings of foundational economists such as Adam Smith and Henry Simons (and Walter Eucken in the German literature). As a result the concept of a “merit good” is used to classify and argue for a number of governmental tasks such as the institutional arrangements to make a free market economy work, work efficiently and work in a humane way. Methodologically, this paper connects—as the work of Joseph A. Schumpeter already has—economic theory, the history of economic thought and institutional economics and thereby demonstrates that economics is necessarily about socio-economics.     

Bridging ties at the neighborhood level

This paper examines the relevance of the “strength of weak ties” model (Granovetter 1973) in devising community development strategies for urban neighborhoods. The policy implications of this model for activities designed to promote neighborhood identification and cohesion are outlined, and Granovetter's specific assumptions about the structure and functioning of urban neighborhood social networks are assessed in light of existing research. Little support is found for the presumed absence of bridging weak ties among urban neighbors, or for the assumption that strong ties create an obstacle to effective political mobilization in working-class neighborhoods. An alternative model of local-level integration is suggested, which retains Granovetter's concept of dense clusters of network ties linked by “local bridges”, but re-examines the role of weak ties in effecting such bridges.     

The Political and Economic Consequences of Defining Sustainable Agriculture in the US

Despite the increasing popularity of sustainably produced foods, a concrete definition of sustainable agriculture has been elusive. Even the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) article, “What is Sustainable Agriculture?” starts with the idea that “Some terms defy definition. ‘Sustainable agriculture’ has become one of them” (Gold 2011). This essay explores (1) the history of sustainable agriculture as a concept in the United States, (2) the political and economic forces that have impacted and stifled the process of defining sustainable agriculture, and (3) the implications for social justice that come with creating a specific definition of sustainable agriculture. Recognizing that the ability to define a varied set of agricultural practices as “sustainable” (or not) is an important source of political, economic, or social power, this essay explains how such processes might impact the future of food systems in the United States.     

The Role of Blended Value Accounting in the Evaluation of Socio-Economic Impact of Social Enterprises

Social enterprise has become a key phenomenon in providing public services in many developed countries. The debate on the evaluation of the socio-economic impact generated by this kind of organization has gone hand in hand with the growth of social entrepreneurship. This study provides an exploratory analysis of the emerging practice of measuring the socio-economic impact of social enterprises using the theoretic construct called “Blended Value Accounting” (BVA). Among the models and tools proposed by BVA, we examine in particular the Social Return on Investment (SROI)—an instrument of causal contribution analysis—conducting a literature review on its application to the evaluation of socio-economic impact of social enterprises and on its implications for BVA. Finally, we reach a conclusion as to the role that these tools of mixed accounting and assessment might play—particularly the one examined—with respect to the positivist, critical, and interpretative theories of accounting, thus identifying the areas for further research.     

Embeddedness and local food systems: notes on two types of direct agricultural market

Direct agricultural markets, predicated on face-to-face ties between producers and consumers, are often seen as central components of local food systems. Activists and academic analysts often assume that trust and social connection characterize direct agricultural markets, distinguishing local food systems from the “global food system”. This article examines that premise about direct agricultural markets, using the concept of social embeddedness from economic sociology to analyze the interplay of the economic and the social. Specifically, it draws on Block's (1990) elaboration of the concepts of marketness and instrumentalism to qualify the concept of social embeddedness. Taken together, and augmented by consideration of how they relate to power and privilege, these concepts provide an analytical framework that more accurately describes the social relations of two types of direct agricultural markets — the farmers’ market and community supported agriculture. In providing an alternative market, farmers’ markets create a context for closer social ties between farmers and consumers, but remain fundamentally rooted in commodity relations. In attempting to construct an alternative to the market, as reflected in an explicit emphasis on community and in the distinctive “share” relationship, community supported agriculture moves closer towards the decommodification of food. Nonetheless, in both types of direct markets, tensions between embeddedness, on the one hand, and marketness and instrumentalism, on the other, suggest how power and privilege may sometimes rest more with educated, middle-class consumers than with farmers or less-advantaged consumers. Recognizing how marketness and instrumentalism complicate social embeddedness is critical for understanding the viability, development and prospects of local food systems.     

Good kids with ties to “deviant” peers: network strategies used by African American and Latino young men in violent neighborhoods

Adolescence can be a precarious time for young men of color growing in low-income neighborhoods with high rates of violence. For young men in those neighborhoods this may mean developing a suite of coping strategies that help them successfully navigate their neighborhood and school. Those strategies may include developing social ties with neighborhood residents that are engaged in “deviant” behavior. The aim of this paper study is to leverage the concept of resiliency to examine how social ties to the neighborhood-based “deviant” peers operate as protective factors. To answer this question we use qualitative data from African American and Latino boys and young men from neighborhoods in Chicago and Waukegan, IL who are between the ages of 14–25. Themes emerged that highlight short term positive impacts of social ties with “deviant” peers vs long term consequences. Implications for social work practice and future research are discussed.     

Neo‐liberal reform,the public sector and Black–White inequality

In this article, we offer an overview and critical assessment of recent changes wrought by “new governance” reforms within public sector work, highlighting the implications specifically for Black–White inequality, and denote where further sociological analyses are warranted. These foci are important given the widely accepted—though hardly comprehensively examined—assumption that public sector employment remains a favorable “economic niche” for African Americans. Recent sociological research, including our own, suggests that this is likely no longer the case. The very structure and functioning of public sector work have changed owing to neoliberal agendas and reforms toward privatization over the last two decades, becoming less bureaucratic and increasingly mirroring processes and inequalities more traditionally characteristic of the private sector. We emphasize the consequences particularly for African Americans and call for deeper sociological analyses of public sector racial inequalities, processes, and their consequences.     

Political Position and Social Knowledge1

The nature of social cognition—how we “know about” the social world—is one of the most deceptively obvious problems for sociology. Because we know what we know, we often think that we know how or why we know it. Here, we investigate one particular aspect of social cognition, namely, what we will call “political ideology”—that is, people’s self‐placement on a dimension on which persons can be arrayed from left to right. We focus on that understanding that is in some ways the “ur‐form” of social cognition—our sense of how we stand by others in an implicit social formation whose meaning is totally relational. At the same time, these self‐conceptions seem to be of the greatest importance for the development of the polity and of civil society itself. Our question is, when citizens develop such a “political ideology,” what does this mean, and what do they do with it? We examine what citizens gain from their subjective placement on the dimension from liberalism to conservatism by using the results of a survey experiment that alters aspects of a hypothetical policy.     

Ritual Power in Interaction*

Research (by a self-styled participant observer) into two fashions of persons—nurses and punks—lends unexpected significance to the ritual “frame” as this appears in Erving Goffman's thought. A new concept that was only implicit in Goffman's ritual frame is demanded by the research experiences. This is “ritual power.” Ritual power, especially when it is strong, is like “presence” or “possession”, and it may well exert a major claim on interactants' consciousnesses (whether the interactants are displaying it or appreciating it). Of course, it must follow that verbal forms which try to define ritual power will do so the more powerfully the more they arrest the reader's attention. So it may not be a good idea to use sociological rhetoric of any sort to suggest that punks and nurses are exemplary referents of “ritual power”, but this last possibility is only latent in what follows.     

Measuring Social “Informatization”: A Factor Analytic Approach*

Some scholars have argued that we are witnessing a new social revolution—social “informatization”—that is comparable in scope and impact to that of the Industrial Revolu‐tion of the eighteenth century. Others have argued that it is a much more modest phase in the ongoing development of communication and information‐processing technology. While there are a number of reasons for disagreement about what exactly “informatization” is, and what its impact will be, two are paramount: (1) conceptual imprecision, and (2) issues of measurement. Using factor analysis, this study aims to clarify its conceptualization, and, then, rather than focusing on a single dimension (e.g., technological or economic), it will develop a comprehensive multiple‐indicator measure that captures the economic, technological, and size (stock) dimensions of social informatization. We find that this measure of social informatization strongly correlates with the general level of socioeconomic development. This result implies that social informatization may be a more continuous and cumulative process than a disjunctive or discontinuous “revolution.”     

Mann,war, and cyberspace: dualities of infrastructural power in America

Not long after the completion of Michael Mann’s “quadrilogy” on The Sources of Social Power (1986–2012), social scientists began to interrogate the meaning of his concepts of “despotic” and “infrastructural” power. While we know that the former is the most evident sign of danger in times of war, less well understood is the role of infrastructural power in state/civil society relations. Most important is the ambiguous relationship between the two types of power and the possibility that—especially in times of war—infrastructural power can become the vehicle for despotic ends. But infrastructural power is also reciprocal, offering firms and civil society groups channels with which to contest the state’s projects. In this article, I first explicate the different meanings that Mann gave to his concept of infrastructural power. In the second section, I turn to how the concept has been “received” in political science and historical sociology. In the third part, I argue that the main danger to American democracy in wartime lies not in its becoming a despotic state, but in the use of the state’s infrastructural channels for the exercise of despotic ends. The fourth part illustrates the complexities of infrastructural power in business/government/civil society relations in cybersecurity, which Mann—for understandable reasons—did not examine in his encompassing work.     

Networks — a new paradigm of rural development?

The network concept has become widely utilised in socioeconomic studies of economic life. Following the debates around exogenous and endogenous development, networks may also have particular utility in understanding diverse forms of rural development. This paper assesses whether networks provide a new paradigm of rural development. It seeks to capture a series of differing perspectives on economic networks — including political economy, actor-network theory and theories of innovation and learning — and attempts to show how these perspectives might be applied to different types of rural areas. The paper demarcates two main “bundles” of networks: “vertical” networks — that is, networks that link rural spaces into the agro-food sector — and “horizontal” networks — that is, distributed network forms that link rural spaces into more general and non-agricultural processes of economic change. It is argued that rural development strategies must take heed of network forms in both domains and that rural policy should be recast in network terms.