engleski

Understanding the process of managerial entrenchment: The role of managerial social capital in corporate governance of a post- socialist economy structure of the firm

The aim of our qualitative study of managers in private and state owned companies was to examine the influence of ownership structure on the way social capital is used and created within organizations. The main goal of the paper is to identify the mechanisms that influence the creation of managers’ social capital that enables knowledge transfer with regard to the specific context of the Croatian transition economy and the large stake of state-owned companies present in the Croatian business sector. Although the effects of social capital on managerial and firm performance have been researched on numerous occasions (Spender and Grant, 1996, Burt, 1997, Uzzi, 1997, Yli-Renko, Autio and Sapienza, 2001, Cross, Martin and Weiss, 2006, Kogut and Zander, 2002, Borghatti and Cross, 2003, Carlile and Rebentisch, 2003) we found that the topic hasn’t been researched in the context of corporate governance of post-socialist economies. Considering that different cultural practices affect the nature of the managers’ social capital (Chua, Morris and Ingram, 2009), we saw an opportunity to determine whether social capital is created and maintained in a different manner in the South Eastern European region than in established free-market economies with regard to the ownership structure of the company. Thus, we focused our research on the antecedents of social capital and the way managers mobilize it. In that sense, we analyzed different strategies and tactics managers use in order to build their social network and entrench themselves in governing positions. Considering that this type of research has never been carried out in this region, our study opens up some new research horizons for the research of idiosyncratic business practices and culture in (post)transition economies.

Social capital; ownership structure; state-owned companies; corporate control

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