Introduction

Social capital

• The concept of social capital provides a good framework for analyzing the nature of social connections through its focus on both structural networks (bridging) and interpersonal relationships (Chenall, Hall and Smith, 2010)

• NGOs rely on developing social connections to draw together those in need with service providers and suppliers of welfare funding

• “A growing number of sociologists, political scientists, and economists have invoked the concept of social capital in the search for answers to a broadening range of questions being confronted in their own fields” (Adler and Kwon, 2002)

  • Idea of social capital being used to answer questions in many fields

NGOs

• Providing welfare requires that the NGO develops an identity to delivery humanitarian services and to attract economic capital to fund operations

  • These often conflict with one another

    • Inherent tension (Bourdieu, 1986)

  • MCS are used to assist with both these goals

• Civil society = real or space where there are a set of organizational actors who are not part of the household, the market, or the state (Lewis, 2007)

Structural bridging and bonding

• The concept of structural bridging to analyze networks of social ties, and relational bonding to examine how individuals are predisposed towards mutually beneficial collective action helps to isolate the different advantages and disadvantages that can be derived from social capital (Gittell & Vidal, 1998)

  • Particularly related to information, power and solidarity (Adler and Kwon, 2002)

  • Bonding and bridging can play a role in attracting economic capital while preserving culture capital (Adler and Kwon, 2002)

    • But no guaranteed

  • MCS have potential positive and negative effects on bonding and bridging (Chenhall, Hall and Smith, 2010)

MCS

• Formal controls are an important part of MCS

  • Help to maintain financial viability

  • Help to develop efficient and effective work processes

• 2 main frameworks:

  • 1) Levers of control (LOC) framework (Simons, 1995)

    • Identified belief and boundary systems and diagnostic and interactive control systems

  • 2) Enabling and coercive controls (Ahrens & Chapman, 2004)

    • Help show how effect controls must have sufficient information and means of engagement to enable employees to address their areas of operation

• Evidence shows that using flexible, organic controls can help maintain employee commitment and a sense of innovation (Davila, Foster & Oyon, 2009)

• Ebrahim (2003), Hopwood (2006) and Lewis (2003) called for research into issues of management and MCS in NGOs

  • Chenhall, Hall and Smith were one of the first studies to do this

Literature review

Social capital and prior MCS research

• Relatively few studies on the role of MCS in the development of social capital at the organizational level

• Structuring of networks is relevant to social capital (e.g Mouritsen and Hansen, 2006)

• Hakansson and Lind (2007) researched the role of MCS within enterprise networks

• Only a small number of accounting studies that have examined how organizations interrelate within the broader network of entities with which they interact (e.g. Tomkins, 2001)

• “It is possible to study networks through social capital” (Mouritsen and Thrane, 2006)

• Empirical study:

• Jacobs and Kemp (2002) found that among Bangladeshi small traders, the absence of accounting could be explained by the presence of social capital

• In Uganda, community-led initiatives had the potential to enhance social capital and lead to improved accountability and social outcomes (Awio, Lawrence and Northcott, 2007)

Bourdieu’s concept of capitals

• Bourdieu (1986, 1993, 1998) considers how social connections can be used to gain individual advantage

• Economic and social capitals can be identified as attributes of organizations

• Cultural capital can be identified at the organizational level – ‘knowledge, practices, and goods’

• Rare and desirable

• Play a role in their social reproduction (Rubtsova & Dowd, 2004)

• Can be employed by organizations for status attainment (Lamont & Lareau, 1988)

• Many NGOs see economic capital as a means to develop cultural capital, unlike more commercially-based organizations that employ cultural capital to maximize economic capital (Ebrahim, 2003)

• Competition for resources and often client groups exists in both

• But more engagement in collaborative effort to achieve common social outcomes in NGOs

• Cultural capital can be eroded by the dominance of economic capital, facilitated by accounting systems (Oakes et al. 1998)

• Formal planning and accounting systems imposed by outsiders were used to shift the focus away from cultural capital

• Oakes used Bourdieu’s concept of symbolic violence to show that planning systems had subtle rather than explicit effects

Properties of social capital

• Bridging = The impersonal properties of the social system and the network of social relations as a whole

• Bonding = The existence of values or norms shared by members of a group that permit cooperation among them

Benefits and disadvantages of social capital

Taxonomies of MCS and importance to social capital

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