From Social Capital to Social Profits: Discourses on Corporate Ethics, Governance, Choice and Values (2009)

IntroductionSocial Capital as an analytical tool can be used in the field of Business Management to facilitate different business practices from both an ethical angle and a utilitarian perspective (Bjornskov, 2004; Beugelsdijk, 2004). Business managers should try to entrench networks of trust, loyalty and cooperation within and outside their organisations. This also makes good business sense in terms of rational choice theory.Good business is also about establishing customer-friendly images in a manner that highlights values such as reliability, trustworthiness, quality, economy and durabiUty. These values evolve over time and are underpinned by a sustained relationship of confidence. So, specific products more often than not become identified with brand names either for niche or for broad based markets. Brand equity and positioning generally depend upon the successful merchandising of products and their images (Boix & Posner, 1998).Theoretical FrameworkThe problematique of this paper is structured around the polemic of civil societal institutions (networks and embeddedness) and democratic governance (inclusive growth and participatory development) among other critical areas of social scientific research. This line of theoretical research is expected to contribute new knowledge and facilitate innovative research to better understand the interactions and interplay between actors and their institutions (Bourdieu, 1979).The politics of everyday life and human development are generally informed by the dynamics of choice and the strategies of cooperation. This tension can be somewhat resolved by adopting the social capital approach, as inclusive growth can more often than not be ensured by empowered choices and delegated actions.The above contention is supported by the World Bank's perception of social capital. The Bank tends to apply the lessons learnt from various projects funded under its auspices in the light of community fabric, collective trust and networks of cooperation sustained by the ethos of multi-stakeholder dialogues.This highlights the importance of social capital in all our grand as well as small narratives today in a world where economic signifiers and their signified meanings are more or less in a state of constant flux provoked by the marketplace of politics and the social as well as cultural rhetoric of globalisation.The Bank has also championed the Think-Globally- Act-Locally slogan while the Millennium Development Goals themselves are a construct of social capital that require meaningful negotiations with the perceptions of disengaged civil societies and panoptic state systems.Tradition of TrustA perspective analysis of the dynamics of trust in any business organization happens to be a most problematic exercise that has to be carried out over a period of time and that involves multiple stakeholders as well. Why should one trust his/her peers, superiors and subordinates? Is trust a construct of culture specifics? Can trust be equated with the given socio-politico-economic realities of any spatio-temporal context? Can trust be learnt or emulated? Can trust be analyzed in terms of cost-benefit calculations?These are rather disquieting questions with no unilinear answers. Business leaders have to realize that the pedagogy of trust and resilience of professional relationships can only be tested against either hypothetical or real life situations where the actual motivations, aspirations, perceptions, preferences and culture root paradigms of individuals or groups are explicitly exposed in the given context of their informed self-interest (Bourdieu, 1986).Trust happens to be a matter of choices that is not altogether different from the various other choices we make during the course of an ordinary day. But choices are also inspired and conditioned by values that are established standards of social interactions and constantly re-learnt during the life of organisations and the professionals who sustain such organisations. …