Research On The Ethical Implication And Cultivation Mechanism Of Enterprise Social Capital

Since the 1970 s,the social capital theory,with its rich connotation and strong explanatory power,has attracted the keen attention of sociology,politics,economics and many other disciplines.Enterprise social capital,as a special form of capital,is an important source of enterprise competitiveness and is highly valued by scholars and enterprise managers.As a discipline to study economic subject especially the ethical and moral issues in business activities,economic and business ethics cannot avoid discussing the social capital of enterprises.In this way,following the line from theory to practice,it has become an extremely important theoretical and practical topic to reveal the ethical attributes of enterprise social capital from the perspective of enterprise ethics and to study the construction of its cultivation mechanism.Meanwhile,this proposition is also an exploration for "how to promote the formation of social capital?" from the enterprise level,this question is one of the important topics for social capital theory.To discuss enterprise social capital,we must first determine a premise,that is,the sociality of human beings and enterprises.Human sociality is the essential attribute of human beings.Meanwhile,as the main body of economic behavior,enterprises willinevitably socialize with stakeholder while being economical,so they also have sociality.For a person as an individual and a corporate as a legal person,the sociality they have contains moral relations and has specific ethical connotations.Therefore,from the perspective of enterprise ethics,it is possible to use the method of literature analysis and induction,case study,comparison and reference,transference and expansion of interdisciplinary theoretical achievements to conduct research on enterprise social capital.Taking business ethics as the starting point,it is necessary to focus on the necessary value premise and ethical link of corporate social capital,and on applying the research results of ethics to the research of corporate social capital,in particular,focus on using five basic ethical theories,namely,virtue theory,utilitarianism,non-consequentialism theory,integrative social contract theory and care ethics,to analyze enterprise social capital.In order to constructing the whole cultivation mechanism of enterprise social capital,it is necessary not only discussing the ethical mechanism,but also the non ethical mechanism.From the perspective of ethics,business ethics is the moral image of the enterprise,it is also the core competitiveness of enterprises,and it is an important part of enterprise social capital.Enterprise social capital refers to the internal and external socialization links established by enterprises during their existence,from which they can obtain the necessary resources for the operation of enterprises.It also contains the common ideas,values and norms that can support the activities of enterprises in these social links.Enterprises social capital can be divided into two dimensions: internal social capital and external social capital,and two levels: personal social capital with employees as the main body and corporate social capital with enterprises as the main body.At the same time,it can be divided into structural social capital and cognitive social capital according to the different elements.By reviewing the evolution of social capital theory,analyzing the social capital of enterprises from the perspective of enterprise ethics,and comparing the relationship between corporate material capital,human capital,social capital and human beings,it can be found that material capital connects human nature,human capital reflects human practicality,while social capital is based on human sociality.In enterprise social capital,the structural social capital has the moral relation which coexists with the interest relation and the moral right which is parallel with the economic right.Cognitive social capital has ethical connotations such as trust,cooperation,sharing,common pursuit and professional spirit.These moral premise and ethical meaning that constitute enterprise social capital make it has three aspects of ethical effects on enterprises,namely,coordinating the conflict between justice and interests,balancing fairness and efficiency,and promoting the all-round development of human beings.Enterprise social capital is best characterized by concept aggregation,loss easily and the possibility of raising negative externality.Enterprise social capital works on certain precondition: having entrepreneurs as well as their basic social relations,and taking these as start point to form cooperative relationships both in inside and outside of an enterprise,which plays its capital role by integrating physical capital and human capital,reducing transaction costs,promoting innovation activities in enterprises.From a practical point of view,enterprises capital have been facing certain difficulties on the cultivation of practiceduring practical operation of enterprises,including the insufficient knowledge of the concept of enterprise social capital and its ethical characteristics,insufficient diving force for the investment of enterprise social capital,and the lack of guarantee and adjustment system for enterprise social capital.But the current development of enterprise culture and the management of public relationships provide a positive opportunity for the cultivation of enterprise social capital.Under the premise of full consideration on moral precondition,ethical connotation and realistic dilemma of enterprise social capital,the cultivation mechanism of enterprise social capital would be better to be constructed from following aspects: firstly,the cultivation of enterprise social capital need to develop a decision-making mechanism of enterprise ethics,including taking ethical consideration into business decision-making processes,clearing and defining the basic standard of moral responsibility,establishing the ethical decision-making processes,and improving the ability for the enterprise to make ethical decisions to form a right ethical guidance.These are the basis constitution of the positive social capital.Secondly,developing the driving force mechanism contains the economic performance actuation,professional ethics drive and social psychology drive,which are the core mechanism in the cultivation of enterprise social capital.Thirdly,building up the guarantee system includes the institutional staff protection,incentive constraint guarantee and the space and time guarantee.Fourthly,establishing the external adjustment mechanism contains education adjustment,regulation of social participation and regulation system adjustment.The cultivation mechanism system constructed above about enterprise social capital is based on theoretical derivation and practical experience,and we still need to further verify its feasibility and practicality.The Grounded Theory is a mature tool which is widely used in the study of sociology,and using it can deduce the necessity of enterprise social capital cultivation system and the construction possibility of it.By using the multi-case analysis of the Grounded Theory,we testified that the construction of enterprise social capital cultivation system is an inevitable demand for enterprise performance.Enterprise social capital cultivation system is constituted by the ethical decision-making mechanism,the driving force mechanism,the guarantee mechanism and the external adjustment mechanism.The function of these four mechanisms is mutual complementation and can form an integrated enterprise social capital cultivation system.Enterprise social capital cultivation system based on the above four mechanisms is beneficial to the improvement of enterprise performance.Meanwhile,this system plays a prominent ethical role in promoting the integration between enterprise and environment,the comprehensive development of employees,and the coordination between the righteousness and benefit of an enterprise.As a new theory,there are many theory research results about enterprise social capital in recent years,but those that take business practice into consideration is less.Therefore,it is of great necessity to have a comprehensive understand on this new form of capital,and to explore its effective cultivation mechanism based on theories analysis so that we can make our best to make enterprise social capital better into the enterprise practice,and to enhance the competitiveness of enterprises.