In this final chapter of Master’s Thesis the main findings will be summarized. Also the theoretical contribution to the topic is presented. Finally managerial implications and suggestions for further research or research areas for the future will be discussed. It is good to look back at the original research problem and the created research questions that guided this study. It is also good to provide findings of the empirical research and the tool of analysis.
The research problem of this study was “Global Economic Impact of SME Export Business Owners to Local Community” and created research questions that guided the process were: (1.) How being a member of a global JCI network can contribute to better international entrepreneurship opportunities? (2.) How increased social, human and relational capital (networks) of JCI members impact the local community?
As this research was a forerunner of its kind concerning that it was done for the organization of Junior Chamber International as well as for the academics there was no previous research done which caused dilemma for the researcher to find suitable literature for the topic. As I am an active citizen and a member of the organization I chose to use literature that I consider suitable for the operations of the organization. The literature was focusing on both intangible capital including social, human and relational capital and networking capability on the context of international entrepreneurship. The context was decided when the empirical research focused on SME export business owners within the selected interpersonal network thus placing theoretical concepts to the proper context was necessary in order to understand how selected theoretical concepts are actually used in practice at international business environment.
Within the chosen theoretical concepts the major framework of social capital came from Bourdieu (1986), Coleman (1988), Putnam (1995), Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998), and Adler &
Kwon (2002). Bourdieu (1986) focused his research on the other types of capital, more soft instead of hard financial capital. Main contribution of Coleman (1988) was on understanding what social capital does for relations is the similar what “oil does in a motor” so missing the social capital would not make some achievements possible for the group or a team. Just as oil is inside of the motor in a closed environment where it cannot leak out Coleman’s view on social capital works best within the closed social structure of the group. I chose Putnam’s civic community aspect to literature as it was the closest within the selected interpersonal network of Junior Chamber International which can be seen as a civic organization working for the improvement of the community.
Main argument of Putnam (1995) was that we as an individuals’ prefer to be individuals’ and do not want to participate in group activities as much as compared to earlier decades in 1960s onwards. The contribution of Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998) was a key input on this research as their model divided social capital into three sub dimensions which are structural, relational and cognitive and how these three dimensions are linked. Structural dimension is based on network ties, cognitive dimension to social exchange and learning between individuals while relational dimension on trust between individuals within the network. Adler and Kwon (2002) combine the social capital research and how earlier researchers have argued social capital theory to be either internal, external or mix of both opinions among the academics.
On human capital the origin of the theory came from Becker (1964) defining the term as knowledge, information, ideas, skills and health of individuals. Since we as an individuals’ can be separated from the financial capital but our human capital is with us since for example our knowledge and skills cannot be separated from us. Coleman (1988) highlighted the importance of social capital in generating human capital and Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998) focused solely on knowledge categorizing it as practical knowledge, theoretical knowledge and experience based knowledge. Also Polanyi (1967) defined knowledge as both tacit and explicit which is seen as a more popular definition among academics. Recent theory on human capital is from Unger et al. (2009) as they state human capital including educational background, knowledge, skills and experience is generally linked with the success especially in entrepreneurial operations.
For relational capital the main focus is put on findings of Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998) which I have linked with the original finding on relational dimension since the key in both is trust. Trust between individuals have been researched by many academics as they have tried to proof it as a key feature on relations (Misztal 1996; Castelfranchi et al. 2006; Anderson et al. 2010; Yee 2015). Happonen (2011) defined relational capital as nature of the relations between individuals which are always active in different settings where individuals meet instead of being just related on professional life.
Networking capability was highlighted as key element of the success of a company (see Vesalainen & Hakala 2014; Molodchik et al. 2014; Mitrega et al. 2012) Major difference in earlier research and this research is that earlier research is based on the element that networking capability is done by the company compared to this new research placing individual in the central role instead which is closer to the view of Gulati (1998) who point out the importance of managers’ personal connections for creation of new partner relations for the company.
The theoretical background was placed into a model created by author called “intangible capital iceberg” which combines the previous theoretical concepts and link those to the selected interpersonal network of Junior Chamber International and how selected theoretical concepts influence on the context of international entrepreneurship in order to create impact to the community. Model is opened in the earlier chapter 2.5.
Figure 5 Intangible Capital Iceberg
The results of the empirical research support the set theoretical framework and the chosen literature. In the multiple-case study three individuals who are honorary members of JCI network as a Senator as well as owners of SME export business provided answers on three categories. These categories were Senator as a member of JCI family, Senator as owner of exporting SME company and community impact of the company as well as individually. There were supposed to be four individuals since for the research to be global according to JCI view on the world which is divided to four areas. Areas are Europe, Asian-Pacific, Americas and Africa-Middle East. Unfortunately the area representative of Americas was not identified thus other areas have participated. Reasons for not identified individual on the Americas could be set limitations of the study or those individuals are no longer active citizens of the network therefore they have not received the shared information or simply they did not consider participation worthwhile.
For each participating area representative the individual-level logic model was created. The models were created for SE, SAP and SAM and the findings supported the set research question of “how increased social, human and relational capital (networks) of JCI members impact the local community?” Collected data revealed the importance of the network of Junior Chamber International as a key element to increase intangible capital of the active citizens. Each representative highlighted the percentage of growth on their personal business skills while being a member as well as the skills they gained from the internal training programs and active participation on projects created by local chapters in a method of learning by doing. Each representative provided community impact both on personal level as well as on the company perspective. On personal level the research was more qualitative and on company level more quantitative thus used method on this research was mixed-methods simple which allowed researcher to use both quantitative and qualitative research methods for data collection.
According to Saunders et al. (2012) typically researcher who is oriented to pragmatism choose to use mixed methods in the methodology of the research. Since my chosen research philosophy is pragmatic following the findings of Dewey (1908) on theory to be about the nature of ideas, truth and finally theory about reality as I consider only those research with realistic implications as valuable then mixed-method simple was a correct decision for methodology of this research.
As the results of data gathering on interview with SE argue there is more domestic business done by members of JCI instead of international business. This creates an opportunity for further research if the focus is placed on the all kind of entrepreneurship inside the JCI global network instead of focusing solely on exporting companies. The further research should not be limited on any form of company either but allow all size of companies if those are inside the JCI network. The next research could be around the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It should be researched by country to country how many percentage of national GDP the entrepreneurs of JCI network create from the total percentage of the each country. After collecting the data from each country where JCI operates it could be measured as combined figure towards the global GDP. Limitation could be that GDP created only by private companies is allowed since governmental companies have high influence on larger countries GDP in several fields of exports which would distort the level and percentage of actual community impact by the organization from the total GDP. It is good to remember that this research is done in a co-operation of JCI HQ and with General Secretary Mr. Arrey Obenson thus this is the first time in the academic social sciences like business studies that Junior Chamber International as an organization has been researched. This research provides understanding especially to academics the important influence of the JCI learning organization and the positive change that its members globally create but also for the JCI organization as a first academic research on the community and economic impact the organization have had over the years. This research does not cover all aspects nor provide the complete community impact of the organization due to the limitation and used methods but is a beginning of mutual understanding between the academic researchers and the global organization. This research provide some understanding for the organization on the importance of documenting and researching the community impact from different academic fields and perspectives. I as a researcher and a member of JCI global network of active citizens hope that my contribution for the organization help it to grow awareness among the world and hopefully increase the rate of interest among those active citizens who want to join the Junior Chamber International in their local communities. I have tried to model the operations of the organization in the theoretical framework called “Intangible Capital Iceberg” from the daily operations in my local chapter JCI Ylä-Savo since 2012 in Finland which could be the same model of operation in every chapter globally. The model consists of intangible capital, networking capability, structure of JCI network and trust on our shared vision, mission and values globally. For the end I quote JFK: “Harvard gave me an education but Junior Chamber gave me an education for life”.
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