The article discusses the impact of social networks, which are formed in the context of voluntary associations, on democratic values. Democratic theory predicts voluntary associations promote tolerance and empirical studies conducted in consolidated democracies have confirmed positive relationship between the involvement in civil society organizations and tolerance. Very differently, membership in voluntary association in post-socialist countries has statistically insignificant or even negative relationship. In our article we show the reason for differential effects of associational membership on tolerance lies in the structure of social networks in new democracies which have more homogeneous and less trustful membership.
COBISS.SI-ID: 29061469
Article studies social networks in eleven European countries. The empirical study was conducted in the framework of the international research collaboration project CID (Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy). The aim of the article is to assess the potential of social networks for political action with an emphasis on the network size, network composition and interpersonal political communication. The results indicate large differences between the European countries with respect to the social networks related mechanisms of political mobilization.
COBISS.SI-ID: 25797213
The article explores how SMEs asymmetric relations with different stakeholders undermine their capacity of getting financial resources and accessing markets. The author points to dependency as the distinctive feature of SMEs and discusses what can be done from the policy perspective to address it. Furthermore, the author stresses the importance of considering the nature of the linkages among firms in production networks and value chains. The article focuses on the case of Slovenia where SMEs performed rather well after the drop in employment and value added experiences in 2007 and 2008. It thoroughly analyses the Slovenian Program of Measures for Promoting Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness 2007-2013 which is the key document in country's strategy which revised in 2009.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31667549
The number of coworking spaces and the number of people who choose to work in them has exploded over the past few years, with numbers expected to double every year. What is fuelling this growth and where is the demand for coworking coming from? We tried to address this question by looking at the specific needs of the rising creative class, identifying their urgent need for uninhibited sharing of information, knowledge, ideas and also material resources. We argue that coworking spaces are favoured by the creative class, because they offer a community of work which facilitates the culture of sharing. To illustrate what it takes to establish such a community of work, we present a case study of the Creative Centre Poligon which suggests that community building is a multi-step process that needs careful management and plenty of time. We conclude that policy makers should not focus on building coworking spaces in order to combat youth unemployment but should rather support existing initiatives that have been built or are in the process of building up vibrant communities of work.
COBISS.SI-ID: 33783901
Current research on innovations builds extensively on network analysis demonstrating how different characteristics of social networks affect the ability of organisations to secure a continuous flow of innovation. This research, however, is highly fragmented, emphasising different features of social networks having an effect on various types of innovation at different organisational levels. The result is a plethora of research findings that do not systematically inform the subject matter or provide clear guidance for practitioners in organisations. In this paper, we address this gap and propose an integrative framework to help bring the divergent streams of research together and contribute to a better understanding of organisational innovation. We propose to distinguish between two dimensions: innovation type and organisational level. These distinctions robustly describe characteristic organisational contexts in which innovation takes place. We conclude by proposing for each organisational context how specific network characteristics affect innovation.
COBISS.SI-ID: 34429021
The purpose of this paper was to examine leadership competences of managers in the healthcare sector in Slovenia. We took Mitzberg’s model of managerial roles to group competences in relational, informational and decision making competences. The data collected in the framework of HEGESCO 2008 survey on a large sample of employees in Slovenia private and public sector included a subsample of 269 employees in Slovenian healthcare and 268 business managers who were assessed on 16 leadership competences. We found that there were stronger differences between business and healthcare managers than between healthcare managers and healthcare employees suggesting a lower professionalization of management in Slovenian healthcare. Leadership competences of healthcare mangers were generally lagging behind the level of leadership competences of business managers. The differences within healthcare sector indicated that leaders have more pronounced interpersonal competences than non-leaders in Slovenian healthcare.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3291109
Higher growth is a key goal of companies, governments, and societies. Economic policies often attempt to attain this goal by targeting companies of certain sizes that operate in specific industries and focus on a specific business activity. This approach to policy making has considerable shortcomings and seems to be less than fully effective in increasing economic growth. We suggest a new approach to policy making that stems directly from the entrepreneurial perspective. This approach examines a successful business strategy framework - the Blue Ocean Strategy- to discover conditions for high growth. We test the propositions on empirical data for two cases of successful high-growth business, namely Slovenian gazelles and Amazon.com. The results reveal a gap between the macro level of economic policy making to achieve higher growth and the micro level of business growth. The findings call for a change in the focus of economic policies on specific size companies, industries, and business activities to intra-industry cooperation, collaboration between companies of different sizes, value innovation, and creation of uncontested markets.
COBISS.SI-ID: 20760038
The book deals with the question Should governments be involved in economic affairs? The authors offer a sociological perspective to emphasize that states can never be divorced from economy. From defining property rights and regulating commodification of labor to setting corporate governance standards and international exchange rules, the state manages the functioning of markets and influences economic outcomes for individuals, firms and nations. The argument is supported by the rich empirical material.
COBISS.SI-ID: 29792605
Symbolic resources affect social and economic development. The book studies the productive role of cultural capital at the societal level and makes analogy to the studies of social capital. The value of being "Made in America" or "Made in Italy," for example, depends not only on the material advantages each place offers but also on the symbolic resources embedded in those places of production. Drawing on case studies from all over the world this volume examines the various forms that cultural wealth of a nation affects cooperation within and between public and private sectors.
COBISS.SI-ID: 31127389
In this paper, the authors analyse the institutional aspects of local governance. After the local government reforms, two main currents of change were created among European countries, namely the (quasi-) parliamentarisation administration systems committees, and (quasi-) presidentialisation through the form of elected mayors. Through an overview of the changes in the Slovenian local self-government in the last two decades, the authors determine a gradual transition from parliamentarism (with a relatively strong legislative body, municipal council) to the strengthening of the individual executive body (mayor), e.g. presidentialisation. By using the calculated index of mayoral strength, the authors conclude that according to the mayoral institutional power, the Slovenian system of local self-government is closer to the countries with (post) Napoleonic administrative tradition than to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
COBISS.SI-ID: 34011229