Social Role of Organization

Some authors have incorporated these new dimensions into this broader view of concepts related to companies and their role as business agents, recent publications regarding organizational topics and evaluations of successful business entities includes, within their business analysis articles.

An exhaustive review of six articles were published in the journal ‘Academy of Management Review’ where becomes evident; the importance and complexity of including social welfare into research, how it enriches the conclusions and how sometimes its contribution is underrated (Jones et al., 2016). The authors also declare that by expanding the scope and understanding of organizations it also increases the difficulties for researchers, the forthcoming complications provides an extended and complex scenario, where becomes evident that the economic success of organizations is closely linked to the contribution of organizations to the social welfare to the areas where the organization is located. Despite this, the upcoming challenges for the same structures and the difficulties of measuring these social benefits. the circular relation along with different kinds of variables. The outcomes of this articles invite researchers to develop potential measure models that can include the social welfare within the benefits generated for the business, it also concludes that social welfare, and therefore total contribution of organizations, cannot be understood only from an economic perspective, ending the neo-classical approach of businesses as

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merely profit-productive centred organizations and supporting the idea of joint value creation for organizations (Bridoux and Stoelhorst, 2016).

Unfortunately, there are several reasons to declare that the relation between social welfare and economic efficiency is not a simple balance issue. In fact, this situation has been discussed by many authors and, also, by the major economies in the world.

The European Union has been working with these concepts for long time, specifically since 1957 when the ‘Economic and Social Committee’ was stablished in the EU Rome treaty and its role have been reinforced in the subsequent treaties, its composition it’s shown in the Figure 1. Through this committee the European Union developed initiatives to assist the European Parliament, Council and European commission in their aims to develop better conditions for the member states (European Economic and Social Committee, 2010).

Figure 1 Members states and groups structure (European Economic and Social Committee, 2010)

The initiatives driven by the European Economic and Social Committee are involved for the economic and social interest of their members, seeking for cross-industry and social

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dialogue among employers, workers, authorities, social committees, and stakeholders in general, including the concept of social partner organization (European Union, 2020).

Furthermore, the European Parliament have been progressively increasing the importance of social aspects; in 2006 the European Parliament made a call to consider the social economy as one of the keys variables of the European Social model, later on in 2009 the European Parliament recognized social economy as the most valuated factor in achieving the goals proposed in the Lisbon Strategy objectives (European Economic and Social Committee, 2012).

On the other hand, the United Stated of America has been more reluctant in their approach to apply politics that will increase the social welfare, noticing the political cost implied in these decisions, the article ‘Why Doesn’t The US Have A European-Style Welfare State?’

provides a critic point of view of this situation by comparing its current situation with the European efforts aimed at being more equitable and generous with those in need. It is very relevant to mention that a cornerstone stated in this document tries to explain why politicians have not made much effort to imitate the European path and what is the so-called political costs of increasing budget allocations in social welfare. The author links the racial animosity in the United States with the political cost for those who dare to increase state benefits or ‘harm’ organizations by increasing corporate social responsibility obligations. “European countries are much more generous to the poor relative to the US level of generosity… Racial animosity in the US makes redistribution to the poor, who are disproportionately black, unappealing to many voters” (Alesina et al., 2001). Conversely, other authors recognize the relevance of social economy in the United States recognizing the economic-social integration business development, this social-economic interaction has been gaining followers within various industries in the North American market by reshaping the role that Corporate Social responsibility have in each organization (Forte, 2013). Even so, the author remarks that despite the numerous efforts to find the balance between both areas, there are still missing parts in this interconnected social economic outcome in the United Stated but also in some countries of Europe.

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Having said that, the organization concept moves further from merely a business or economical view, but as a social agent within the society responsible that bring economic benefits and social welfare to the stakeholders.

1.2.2 Concept of place

The general definition for the word ‘place’ refers to “the formal way to call areas, towns, buildings or to refers to the position of something/someone in relation to other”

"(Cambridge Dictionary, 2020). Nevertheless, the concept of ‘place’, from a managerial approach, should be understood as multi-variable idea that build from the interaction from severe factors, environments, and purposes.

“Over the past decade, sociologists have pointed out the need for researchers … to treat places as agents in social phenomena” (Thomas and Cross, 2007). The authors of the concept ‘Organizations as Place Builders’, David Thomas and Jennifer Cross, identifies the many dimensions that a ‘place’ involves, to explain the relevance of these aspects they use a mixed model based on two previous models; ‘The realm theory’ and ‘The meaning of place theory’, developed by Robert Sack and Per Gustafson correspondingly.

First, using the realm model developed by the geographer Robert Sack (Sack, 1992), who based his explanation of the concept ‘place’ grouping the multi-dimensional characteristics of it in three realms:

• The realm of nature, that refers to the territory or logic physical space (based on his geography formation)

• The realm of social relations, that includes relationships, economic benefits, among others.

• The realm of meaning, that tries to explain the other two realms, the interrelation among the domain of a territory (realm of nature) and the social organization