Meaning The Capital In The Net

Why do private entrepreneurs make charitable contributions? How do they give? What kinds of structural and cultural powers affect their donation motives? Charitable donation is not only a purely altruistic behavior, but also contains a wealth of driving factors and meaning construction modes.In this article, we choose Ann Swidler’s "Culture Toolkit" model as an analytical tool, emphasis on the decision-making process of charitable donations of private entrepreneurs in Wenzhou. With semi-structured interviews and qualitative analysis method, we have concluded that the decision-making process of the donation consists of two parts:"whether to donate" and "how to donate". The two decision-making modes based on different theoretical logics:"whether to donate" is associated with instrumental rationality including interests and benefits, then "how to donate" depends on value rationality and constructs complex meanings of donation.In this thesis, three charitable driving forces including economic, politics, and culture will make impacts on the decision of "whether to donate". In the fields created by these driving forces, entrepreneurs choose strategies of actions and make decisions about "how to donate". That is the meaning construction process of charitable giving patterns.Economical force drive donation through direct capital benefit and indirect capital transformation. Then entrepreneurs determine their strategies based on shared utilitarian group culture and social responsibility through which they construct meanings of donation.Political driving force guide donations through exerting pressure and establishing legitimacy. In that circumstance, entrepreneurs use trust model as a selected cultural tool to construct the meanings of charity.Cultural driving force will be more complex. On one hand it shaped the cultural patterns of the Wenzhou ethnic groups, on the other hand, it also created unique cultural systems for individuals. It affects the convergence and divergence selection of strategies of entrepreneurs’ charitable donations and the meaning construction mode.