Privatisation and Social Capital

Gazdasági folyamatok társadalmi beágyazottsága egy kórházi osztály privatizációs kísérleteinek példáján

Abstract

The m odem sociological approach to economic phenomena puts emphasis on the social embeddedness of economic actions, institutions, and outcomes: it takes into consideration the effects of social networks on the economic processes. In the empirical research the concept of embeddedness can be operationalized as the uses of interpersonal relations as recourses by the economic actors, that is social capital. The paper gives an empirical illustration of the social capital approach to privatisation. In the first part - as a conceptual starting point - the concept of embeddedness and social capital are summarised. In the second part a case study is presented from a research on privatisation in the Hungarian health system. The different ways of how the key figures of privatisation try to mobilize their social ties in the different phases of the process are demonstrated in detail.