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The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to review the notion of social capital and its dominant dimensions and appraise the ways in which social capital and these dimensions have been applied within family business research. Second, to develop a number of suggestions of ways in which the concept could be extended, from a symbolic perspective, to provide greater insight into the complexity and heterogeneity of family systems.

This is a conceptual paper designed to stimulate new ways of thinking about social capital and the competitive advantage of family firms.

This paper suggests that social capital has a symbolic dimension, which has been largely overlooked both within the field of family business and across social capital research more generally. Within the field of family business the authors connect this neglect to an over-emphasis on business theories. The authors offer ways in which incorporating a family theory – symbolic interactionism – could help to better understand family firms, social capital, and competitive advantage.

This paper proposes an original approach to social capital. Guided by the notion of informed pluralism the paper integrates seemingly unrelated theories and identifies opportunities for new and innovative research. By espousing a symbolic interactionist approach the argument developed within this paper is valuable for helping to advance new ways of thinking about social capital and the competitive (dis)advantage of family firms.

The existing expatriation literature confirms that international assignments (IAs) are an essential tool for developing international talent and global managers but relevant studies are conducted mainly in western developed contexts and neglect the effects on individuals from less developed countries such as China. This paper explores the concept of career and symbolic capital in Chinese multinational company context. It investigates the value of IAs by exploring the relationships between career capital and symbolic capital.

Twenty-eight semi-structured interviews with Chinese expatriates were conducted.

Results suggest that the value of individual career capital from IAs depends on the contexts and how different parties perceive the value. A model comprising individual, organisational and social dimensions are proposed along with mediating factors that affect the effectiveness of value transfer between career capital and symbolic capital. Implications are rehearsed, exposing areas for further research.

This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the notion of career in an important but under-researched sample: Chinese expatriates. It helps to gain a better understanding on Chinese multinational companies and their employees.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of social, cultural and symbolic capital alongside economic capital, according to Pierre Bourdieu, in small family businesses. The paper demonstrates that social, cultural and symbolic capital, play an important role in maintaining the family farm business and ensuring its survival.

Ethnographic case studies were selected using theoretical sampling techniques and a variety of data collection tools were used, interviews and participant observation, to construct the contextual and historical elements of each case.

The results, though highly case specific, indicate that: social networks (social capital) are important to farmers and their families, and these networks have been weakened over the years. Knowledge transfer is crucial to successful succession in the family business and as such cultural capital (knowledge, skills, qualifications, etc.) is retained within the business and accumulated from wider fields through educational qualifications. Symbolic capital is highly important to farmers and their families and could enlighten family business researchers as to why family farm businesses manage to survive the transition from one generation to the next.

This paper provides insights into how family businesses use non-economic resources to pursue survival strategies. It also demonstrates the importance of exploring all family members, however small their contribution is to the business. The paper highlights how the different relationships between family members enable and hinder capital usage in the family farm business.

This paper explores family farm businesses from a sociological perspective to shed light on how they survive passing between generations, unlike many other family-owned businesses.

The aim of this paper is to provide novel insights into how the cosmopolitan mind-set can be fostered at a time of globalization by considering a group of social actors that has received scant attention in the literature on institutional change, notably migrant entrepreneurs.

This is a conceptual study that draws on Bourdieu’s theory of capital to develop a set of testable propositions as to how the economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital endowments of migrant entrepreneurs shape their agency in bringing about cosmopolitan transformation.

Together, migrant entrepreneurs endowed with higher levels of capital may act as institution reformers and promote the cosmopolitan mind-set by influencing the beliefs, incentives and behaviors of those embedded in more entrenched traditional institutions.

This conceptual framework deals with only one of the many agents that may help bring about cosmopolitan change and is particularly well suited to a Western European context.

This conceptual paper provides a number of testable propositions that can be central to an empirical investigation into how the levels of capital possessed by migrant entrepreneurs affect their engagement in cosmopolitan change.

The findings help identify those individuals who are more likely to endorse the cosmopolitan movement. This implication may be of particular interest to policymakers concerned with conceiving ways of counteracting some of the negative effects caused by globalization, as they need to identify and understand the social agents who can take on the role of catalyzers of public reforms.

The novelty of this paper lies in the development of a set of propositions that shows how divergent change toward a cosmopolitan vision might be engendered by spatially dispersed actors endowed with varying degrees of economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital.

Dynamics of social and symbolic capital within diverse school settings affect how stakeholders (i.e., administrators, teachers, parents, students) influence, interpret, and/or implement the complex demands of education leadership. Educational leadership, as simultaneously possessing both constant and fluid tendencies, is fundamental to establishing benchmarks to successfully impact the educational experience. Having the requisite social and symbolic capital serves as a conduit for accessing quality networks as well as the signification of having gained reputable, legitimate schooling experiences. Notwithstanding, the transferability of those forms of capital provides the venue for K-12 administration to ‘teach effectively’ and ‘lead responsibly’ within leadership contexts, particularly given this era of accountability. The intersection of the theoretical (teaching) and applied (leading) functions of educational leadership lends a democratic model for managing the resulting politics and generating leadership strategies as representative of social and symbolic capital.

Social entrepreneurship education (SEE) is gaining increasing attention globally. This paper aims to focus on how SEE may be better understood and reconfigured from a Bourdieusian capital perspective with an emphasis on the process of mobilising and transforming social entrepreneurs’ cultural, social, economic and symbolic resources.

Drawing on qualitative research with a sample of social entrepreneurship educators and mentors, the authors generate insights into the significance of challenging assumptions and establishing values and principles and hence that of developing a range of capitals (using the Bourdieusian notion of capital) for SEE.

The findings highlight the significance of developing a range of capitals and their transformative power for SEE. In this way, learners can develop dispositions for certain forms of capitals over others and transform them to each other in becoming reflexive social agents.

The authors respond to the calls for critical thinking in entrepreneurship education and contribute to the field by developing a reflexive approach to SEE. The authors also make recommendations to educators, who are tasked with implementing such an approach in pursuit of raising the next generations of social entrepreneurs.

This article examines the labour market inclusion of documented and undocumented Afghan refugees in Pakistan using and extending Bourdieu's theory of capital.

The authors draw on 22 semi-structured in-depth interviews with both documented and undocumented Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

The findings show the low capital endowments of refugees. Their economic capital is shaped by low levels of financial resources, and emotional capital is shaped by their psychological distress and traumata and identity capital takes the form of negative perceptions about them. Their low capital endowments are further reduced through different forms of symbolic violence, such as ambiguous and short-term government policies, bribery and abuse by the police as well as unfair treatment by employers. However, refugees do mobilise their capital endowments to enhance their labour market position. The authors identified resilience as emotional capital, their strategic development of who they are as identity capital as well as social and cultural capital in the form of ethnic and linguistic similarities with locals in finding ways to improve their inclusion in the labour market.

The authors provide insights in the dynamics that lead to and sustain the exclusion and inequalities faced by Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Previous research in sociology, psychology and fashion studies has investigated the concept of diversity in the fashion context, but the topic remains largely understudied within the realm of consumer research. This study aims to examine the reactions of underrepresented women to the fashion industry’s lack of diversity.

A total of 38 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted among a sample of female consumers who were diverse with respect to racial and ethnic background, socioeconomic class, religion, sexual orientation, age, body type and physical appearance.

Using Bourdieu’s forms of capital – social, cultural, economic and symbolic – the findings shed light on the process of virtual community formation on social media in response to the lack of diversity in fashion; reveal fashion consumers’ power to enact institution-level change, compelling the industry to become more diverse and inclusive; demonstrate the outcomes of capital accumulation and illustrate how all forms of capital are produced by and reproduce each other.

This study proposes a new outcome of capital accumulation on virtual communities, termed “transformative value,” in addition to the social and information values identified in earlier scholarship.

This study offers a Bourdieu-oriented analysis of the tax compliance practice for indigenous entrepreneurs in New Zealand. It examines the intersection of accounting and tax for Māori entrepreneurs and their relational interactions with the Inland Revenue Department (IRD)/state/Crown and accountants by considering the contextual factors of history, culture and society of Māori.

Qualitative research was adopted using face-to-face in-depth interviews with 34 participants and reviewing government documents. The authors analyse the tax compliance practice by drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of field, capital and habitus to conceptualise the tax field as a site of struggle for power and control by the IRD, accountants and indigenous entrepreneurs.

This study demonstrates how the tax field is structured as a game between tax reporting, taxpaying and monitoring functions. The position within the field is determined by the actor's access to the relevant capitals and habitus. It identifies how accounting, given its centrality to tax compliance, facilitates the power relations between the IRD, accountants and Māori entrepreneurs. The Eurocentric accounting-based tax reporting and the contextual factors illuminate how indigenous entrepreneurs are being dominated in the tax field. They experienced cultural dissonance with conflicting responsibilities when traversing the collectivistic indigenous and tax fields. Their collectivism involves sharing resources as they cherish whanaungatanga (relationship, kinship) and manaakitanga (kindness, generosity), which are at odds and are not valued in the tax field.

It is an empirical illustration of the connection between accounting, tax and power for indigenous taxpayers and their relationship with the IRD/Crown and accountants. It has practical implications for developing and enhancing tax compliance in jurisdictions with indigenous taxpayers. Such an understanding is helpful for policymakers, government, business agencies and the accounting professions when assisting, empowering and educating indigenous groups regarding tax compliance.

This paper responds to the call for accounting research with modern-day indigenous peoples rather than historical ones. The paper fills a gap in the accounting and tax literature by examining the tax compliance practice of indigenous small and medium enterprise (SME) entrepreneurs using Bourdieu's framework. It identifies how the role of accounting creates, maintains and reinforces power structures in the tax field. Tax/accounting reporting based on Eurocentric rules disempowers and alienates indigenous entrepreneurs. They misrecognise their actions in reproducing the existing power structures in the tax field due to deeply held historical and cultural factors about the fear of the Crown/state and their practice of rangitaratanga (esteeming authorities).