The increasing demands of efficiency and effectiveness in the public sector encourage political leaders and policy makers to adopt and apply advanced techniques and solutions to overcome flaws in public organizational performance. Entrepreneurship was introduced in several Western countries as a way to improve their processes and management through adopting private sector management principles and market-oriented techniques. In 2015, Saudi Arabia announced its 2030 vision, which introduced hundreds of innovative and creative initiatives aiming to overcome issues of the turbulent environment, future oil depletion, budgetary pressures, and public demands for efficiency and effectiveness. Building on interdisciplinary perspectives, this study investigates entrepreneurial orientation among Saudi public employees from all administrative regions across the country. Building on McClelland's theory of motivation, this study hypothesizes that the motives of need for achievement, need for affiliation, and need for power are positively associated with entrepreneurial behavior. It also hypothesizes that excessive organizational hierarchy, formalization, and lack of autonomy constrain employees' entrepreneurial activities. Moreover, this study adopts a sociological perspective in proposing solutions for facilitating entrepreneurial orientation among public employees by hypothesizing that human and social capital promote an entrepreneurial orientation. Multiple regression analysis reveals that Saudi public employees with a higher level of need for achievement and need for power tend to be more entrepreneurial, while need for affiliation fails to predict entrepreneurial orientation. Furthermore, the findings suggest that a high level of hierarchy and formalization in public organizations is negatively associated to entrepreneurial orientation, while a high level of autonomy is positively associated with entrepreneurial orientation. Finally, the study finds that employees with a high level of breadth and depth of experience (human capital) are more likely to be entrepreneurial, while a high level of bonding social capital and bridging social capital promote a negative and a positive entrepreneurial orientation, respectively.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the current state of community participation in Pakistani schools in the capitol city of Pakistan. All national education policies developed by the government of Pakistan stress the need for community participation in the schools. School leaders are mandated to develop strategies to involve parents and community members in schools. This research focused on a single case with multiple subunits geographically situated in Islamabad, Pakistan. In the current study, participants were educational leaders at the central office, campus principals, and representatives of parents and community members in the school and college management committees. Qualitative data included one-to-one interviews, focus groups, and collection of available documents related to community participation in Pakistani schools. Findings of the study revealed four goals and outcomes of the community participation in Pakistani schools. These goals are financial support to the schools, advocacy for schools, academic support and feedback, and support in administration. Major challenges faced by community members and parents during participation in schools include lack of information and awareness, role ambiguity and lack of training, financial constraint and unwelcoming behavior of school and central office administration. Data revealed that educational leadership behaviors which impact community engagement include sociability, trustworthiness, democratic behavior in decision making, and motivational strategies adopted by school leaders. In summary, government, community members, parents and educational leaders are highly intended to work collaboratively for the improvement of education, but a gap is found between intentions and practice in Pakistani educational system.

The goal of this thesis is to identify strategies that promote resident empowerment, involvement and cooperation in housing co-operatives that can be applied to mixed-income developments in order to bridge social capital. Numerous American policy makers, housing professionals and planners support the development of mixed-income housing to address the social and economic isolation of low-income, urban citizens living in public housing. Social capital, or social relationships developed from social networks, is an anticipated result of physically integrating individuals of varying income levels in the same housing environment. Despite efforts for integration, numerous studies have found that limited interaction occurs across class in many mixed-income housing developments, which hinders the development of social capital. Some literature points to empowerment, involvement and cooperation as methods of helping bridge social capital in mixed-income housing. Bridging social capital refers to building relationships among people who are demographically dissimilar to one another, such as in age, race or socioeconomic status. In an effort to learn how to bridge social capital through empowerment, involvement and cooperation, the housing co-operative model is analyzed. This research analyses six housing co-operative case studies. The data collected is from websites, published documents, newsletters and other literary sources provided by the co-ops and informal telephone conversations with co-op management staff. The findings indicate that housing management plays a vital role in promoting empowerment, involvement and cooperation. Recommendations include mixed-income housing management encouraging residents to develop and contribute personal skills to accomplish housing goals; housing management soliciting ideas from residents regarding projects or activities that they desire to be involved in; and housing management facilitating group tasks where residents can collectively achieve a goal such as creating a community garden or creating a mural that reflects various cultures or values of residents.

Contemporary young people would appear to have access to more information than their predecessors in relation to keeping safe by avoiding or reducing risks. However concerns about young people’s perceived increasing risky behaviours have contributed to a growing focus on understanding young people and risk of harm across private and public spheres. This study examines the views, experiences and behaviours of young people and adults in relation to risk of harm to young people and the role of social capital in reducing perceived risk. Using qualitative data with young people and adults in a Scottish community this study develops an understanding of perceptions of the main risks of harm to young people and whether social capital helps to reduce these risks. Social constructions of ‘appropriate’ behaviours for young people to engage in and subsequent constraints imposed by adult-led structures and safety concerns, formed a significant focus of youth theorising in this area. To a certain extent, the findings from this study challenge the conventional construction of young people as risky individuals, by identifying young people’s negotiation and avoidance strategies for keeping safe. However, young people’s experiences and behaviours in public and private spaces remain significantly structured by age and gender. Young people and adults perceive risks associated with alcohol and public spaces to be high and prominent. The continuing notion of risk appears to be evident in young people’s choices about who to socialise with and where, their safety concerns and ultimately how particular social networks can be accessed in order to capitalise on protective measures. Young people’s safety concerns are overwhelmingly related to the ‘other’ in public spaces, reinforcing dominant social constructions of private spaces as safer than public spaces. Strong community ties are highlighted as paradoxical: whilst providing trusting social networks which contribute to loyal and safe peers, the intimacy of such networks is perceived by adults as a barrier to young people’s bridging capital and social mobility. These findings pose difficulties to applying late modernist risk theories which minimise the role of wider social processes in shaping young people’s perceptions. Understanding young people and risk is best served by adopting the sociology of youth and social constructionist perspectives which assert the impact of gender, and in particular the power of age constructions which continue to operate within young people’s lives. Ultimately, perceptions on risk of harm to young people remain infused with gendered and age expectations and constructions.

The developing knowledge economy affects organizations within the innovation system where higher education institutions (HEI) are regarded as a significant part. There is a large amount of research that focus on different aspects of collaboration such as the outcome, the process and its infrastructure. To emphasize HEIs role in the national and regional innovation systems concepts such as Mode 2 and Triple helix, and the Knowledge triangle, have developed. These concepts have also heavily influenced Swedish innovation policy.   This thesis is set to analyze collaboration work between Swedish HEIs and the public and private sectors, and to understand how collaboration: i) occurs in practice in research and undergraduate education; ii) is influenced by policy efforts, and; iii) influence HEI’s internal and external social capital building. Firstly, research and teaching links is analyzed to highlight the integration of collaboration, research and education within specific research profiles. This is because previous research has neglected collaboration and its effect on undergraduate education. Secondly, social capital theory is used as a framework for the analysis. Social capital theory is used to obtain a thorough understanding of individual researchers’ attitude to collaboration and participation in collaboration activities.   The results indicate that short term projects had long-term effects since it established new education programs and projects. Collaboration also effects undergraduate education through research profiles with their integration of research and education in groups within as well as outside the HEI. The results also show that social capital building through top steered initiatives is complex. In the HEIs there was no relation between researchers expressing a positive attitude towards different forms of collaboration and a high participation level in collaboration activities. This suggests that building of external social capital within HEIs is not related to the nature of the internal social capital. There was interfaculty differences in both the researchers’ attitude to collaboration activities and participation in collaboration activities. As expected, professors had more opportunities and ability for collaboration. They also indicated a resistance to use a central infrastructure for collaboration to build external social capital. The opposite was demonstrated for professors from the humanities who had little experience of collaboration. They still did not to use the infrastructure to a large extent. Suggestively policy makers should encourage a more efficient external social capital building through earmarked funding for collaboration on a department level rather than on the HEIs’ central level.

Magistro baigiamojo darbo tikslas - išnagrinėti informacinių technologijų poveikį kapitalo vidiniams ryšiams tiriamosiose organizacijose. Šį darbą sudaro dvi dalys: teorinė ir praktinė. / The purpose of this master work is to analyse influence of information technologies in the analized organizations on internal communications of the social capital. This work consists of two parts theoretical and practical. In the theoretical part the definition of the social capital, and its development are examined, the influence of information technologies on the social capital of communities and the role of information technologies in strengthening internal communications of the social capital in the organization are analysed. The position of information technologies in Lithuania, is reviewed as well. In the practical part organizations the interrelation of workers and information technologies of the analysed organizations and also their influence against each other are researched. Influence of the heads and methods of a management on strengthening of internal communications of the social capital are analysed too. Having generalized results of the research, it was found out, that in the investigated organizations information technologies improve an overall performance in time, carry out functions of dialogue and cooperation. Interaction of information technologies with internal communications represents the tool for maintenance and formations of the social capital in the organizations. Use of these tools depends on that as heads of the organizations care of the internal culture based on trust and psychological endurance of workers.

Submitted by Maria Creuza Silva (mariakreuza@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-07-15T17:23:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE FINAL. SHIRLEY CRUZ. 2015.pdf: 1336711 bytes, checksum: 8ac26e2f869f665c11502950a9a59030 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Creuza Silva (mariakreuza@yahoo.com.br) on 2015-07-15T17:25:14Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE FINAL. SHIRLEY CRUZ. 2015.pdf: 1336711 bytes, checksum: 8ac26e2f869f665c11502950a9a59030 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-07-15T17:25:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 TESE FINAL. SHIRLEY CRUZ. 2015.pdf: 1336711 bytes, checksum: 8ac26e2f869f665c11502950a9a59030 (MD5) / Os resultados da presente investigação são apresentados sob a forma de três artigos articulados entre si e orientados pelo mesmo referencial teórico. O primeiro artigo corresponde a um ensaio, produto de revisão sistemática da literatura sobre os conceitos de capital social, as teorias em que estes estão apoiados, a análise substantiva das citações e a forma como estão sendo operacionalizados. Discute-se a ausência de explicitação conceitual e a dissociação entre a concepção empregada e as formas de apreensão do constructo. O segundo artigo, de caráter exploratório, examina o acesso a recursos relacionados ao capital social e a autopercepção da saúde, com dados do Estudo Longitudinal de Saúde do Adulto (ELSA-Brasil), através da combinação de técnicas estatísticas (análise de correspondências e análise estratificada). Por fim, o terceiro artigo analisa em profundidade os processos que podem intermediar as relações entre a posição ocupada pelos agentes ao interior de um campo social (no caso o espaço universitário), que permitiu melhor analisar o processo de produção do capital social e as relações entre o pertencimento aos diversos grupos e a autopercepção da saúde. Abordam-se os sentidos do capital social para indivíduos situados em diferentes posições sociais.

Social capital research has traditionally been conducted in western and Christian settings as a precursor of changes such as democratization and development. This paper focuses on Islamic religious engagement and its potential to foster social capital. The model presented here is designed to suggest whether the Islam's influence occurs through doctrinal channels, or through Islam's capacity to organize social structures. The analysis conducted is a linear regression model with measures of social capital as dependent variables and measures of religious engagement as independent variables. The analysis is conducted on data from the fourth wave of the World Values Survey. Results suggest that religious engagement and social capital have both belief and behavioral elements that should be treated as separate entities in quantitative research.

Civil society emphasizes the importance for citizens to be involved and developed in association with other people. The importance of socialization for citizens to learn civic values and develop virtues of tolerance and solidarity is generated by voluntary associations. Mediating structures are the entities that help to integrate disconnected elements of civil society and strengthen communities. Social capital is one of the elements that is actively utilized by mediating structures to connect people to, and get involved with others in mobilizing their efforts collectively for both public and private causes through volunteering. Traditionally only charitable nonprofits were perceived to be mediating structures. However, there are scattered examples of non-charitable professional membership 501(c)(6) associations engaging themselves and their members in social programs and community volunteering unaccountable for in the literature. Using the theories of mediating structures and social capital this research questions the assumption of limited applicability of mediating structures. Extensive empirical analysis of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) dataset is performed to determine how social capital and other organizational factors affect the performance of mediating roles by professional membership associations.

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