Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 223-247). Also available in print.

Thesis (fil. dr.)--Göteborgs universitet, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-253).

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-81).

Thesis (fil. dr.)--Göteborgs universitet, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-253).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of Sociology, June 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2004. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-81)

After making an observation that young people wish to maintain traditions, but they themselves do not wish to attend, lead to a curiosity to examine if traditions serve any purpose for the young people of today. The discrepancies between that the young people say that it is important to preserve traditions versus that themselves do not wish to participate leads us to believe that traditions fills some kind of function but the question is – What function is this? The purpose of this research is to find out what purpose traditions have for young people and also look for the answer to why young people refrain from participating in certain traditions. The results are built from answers from interviews with 36 young people (19 girls and 17 boys) in the ages of 17 – 19 years old. Theoretical frames that helps answer the questions in this paper are represented by theories from Anthony Giddens, Pierre Bourdieu, Émile Durkheim and Erving Goffman. The results shows that traditions fills the following function, - maintaining social relationships and connections at different times and in different contexts, - contributing to interaction and connectedness, - legitimately be allowed to be family-oriented, - opportunity to provide a desirable appearance and a desired identity. The results also shows that traditions have a function to exclude when a person is not included in a social context The results show that choosing to refrain from participating has to do with that we live in a post–traditional society that opens up opportunities to make choices. Our desire to keep traditions is based on our upbringing and in our habits

This thesis develops a conceptual framework for relating Social Capital theory to large IT outsourcing projects. It uses this to explore how social factors that arise in outsourcing situations can influence organisations’ competence in IT innovation. It finds that social capital principles provide a valuable alternative perspective to established practices in managing IT outsourcing. Social capital can be applied both in the analysis of IT outsourcing results and in planning outsourcing transitions that lead to improved longer term knowledge creation and innovation capability. Research was carried out in two large and established users of IT outsourcing, a UK government agency and a major bank. Based on this, two detailed case studies were prepared and an interpretive methodology used to understand how the respective outsourcing projects had developed. A conceptual model of the interacting organisational factors that lead to IT competence is derived from existing literature and tested against the case study data. This model sets out the new concept of an ‘outsourcing enclave’ as a unique structure in which knowledge resources of outsourcing client and vendor are combined, supported by social capital that is distinct from that in either feeding organisation. The thesis uses the model to observes how, in the cases studied, effective management of social capital in outsourcing enclaves has created situations conducive to knowledge creation and innovation and the barriers to this that were encountered. This reveals that social capital management in these organisations called for time after outsourcing transition during which social capital can stabilise in the enclave, for learning from the achievement of short term objectives and for application of relational governance alongside the outsourcing contract. The main contributions of the thesis are the conceptual framework of the outsourcing enclave and the use of this to apply social capital theory to specific situations of IT outsourcing. It also demonstrates how theorised dimensions of social capital can be used to interpret outcomes in real outsourcing situations. The cases provide further empirical support for social capital theory and their interpretation a basis for further research in the specific area of outsourcing and IT outsourcing in particular.

The purpose of this paper is to look at the effect of social media use on social capital. This paper attempts to establish a dichotomy between 'real' and 'perceived' social capital and the effect of social media use on both. I use a survey instrument measuring both the social media use and `real' social capital of one group compared with the social media use and `perceived' social capital of the second group. I find that while social media use is related with survey respondents feeling more involved politically and in their community, there is no correlation between actual political/community involvement for other respondents.

As the significance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) increased in the last decade, more enterprises, encouraged by governments, are promoting CSR practice. Therefore, it is necessary to evaluate the conceptualisation of CSR in regions with different cultures, histories, socio-cultural practices and religions. This study was based on a social constructionism approach and the research questions were answered through reviewing the theoretical basis established according to the collection of existing studies, as well as analysing empirical findings obtained from multiple case studies of Korean small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) CSR champions, extensive interviews with international organisations (IOs) and Korean governmental agencies, and documents provided by the case companies, IOs and governmental agencies. This research found different characteristics of CSR between SMEs and multinational corporations regarding language and a necessity for differentiation strategy for development across firm size, industry and governance. Moreover, SMEs' global, national and organisational factors affected their learning and practice of CSR, resulting in different outcomes and peculiar characteristics. These findings could generate the new integrated model to understand CSR by combining two Social Capital Theory perspectives (Coleman, 1988; Fukuyama, 1995). This model facilitated in-depth analysis of the role of CSR in SMEs' development, building social capital on the process of SMEs' CSR practice by establishing virtuous cycles from trustful relationships internally and externally. Finally, it was shown that the CSR territory is expanding from the major Western developed countries to the emerging markets, especially in East Asia. Also, case study of the Korean CSR champions among SME sector could contribute to identifying characteristics of exemplary CSR cases to achieve social and economic responsibilities. Further, this research could provide about their conceptualisation and relationships with other education factors. Therefore, this study provides directions how other ordinary SMEs adopt CSR within their organisational settings, how policy makers set up their governmental support and how academics research about SMEs' CSR.