The meaning of business in the context of social capital

Currently, Western European countries are making an effort to redefine their economic reality by social economy which is composed of organizations functioning on the principles of democracy. These organizations use special property ownership and profit distribution. A general feature of these organizations is their social dimension, arising from the pressure of the external environment concerning the moral responsibility of the companies.  This leads to two main questions: The first question is to find out what a business in the context of social capital should look like. The second question is what the internal structure of the organization should be, including what power distribution would respond to these pressures as a prerequisite for sustainable economic development. The objective of this project is to create the concept of social business with the aim of examining the impact of social entrepreneurship on the economic reality of companies.

We are also struggling with the problem of defining social capital in relation to economic capital. A tendency to combine these two types of capital creates a number of problems. While there is a relationship between human and social capital, human capital can play an important role in creating economic capital. Therefore, we consider it very beneficial to examine the capability of business organizations to create social capital in relation to human capital development, and to evaluate their influence on economic capital by using appropriate methods.

The research methodology combines approaches of deduction and induction. The deductive approach is based on secondary research (collecting documents, literature review, etc.). The inductive approach will be based on data collected through case studies of companies selected by a sifting process, historical analysis (collecting of documents, structured interviews) and case studies of non-profit organizations (collecting documents, observation, structured interviews). The interconnection of primary research (qualitative research in the form of case studies) and secondary research (literature analysis) led to the creation of the model. The outlines of the model and their relationships to the companies' performance will be tested by quantitative research (questionnaire survey) and qualitative research (case studies).