The Impact of Exogenous Factors on Business Elite’s Formation: Comparing Societies

Country’s historical heritage, represented by social, political and economical factors, merely define society’s cultural base, which further define its potentials within all its spheres. In the article we focused on a specific phenomenon i.e. business elites, which we understand as crucial stakehold...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Egon Prijon, Lea Prijon
Format:	Article
Language:	English
Published:	Faculty of Organisation Studies, Novo Mesto 2015-06-01
Series:	Revija za Univerzalno Odličnost
Subjects:	Slovenia state building institutions modernization transition social capital cultural capital and economic capital 1 I ntroduction Elites have always been an extremely in teresting phenomenon but despite all the research they are still an ambiguous topic due to how they are perceived: as actors who promote society’s development and prosperity or a closed and privil eged group of people who act in their own benefits. Elite’s Journal of Universal Excellence Appendix June 2015 year 4 number 2 pp. A12 – A36 . A 13 perception varies within societies which can be the consequence of its formation and role in soci e ty. In this respect we ca n define two types of elite which are formed in a society; promoters of development ( developmental business elite ) and/or rent - seek e rs whose character merely depends on many mutually connected factors i.e. social cultural political and economic ones which together rep resent a society’s/country’s hi storical heritage. These factors represent a basis which promotes (or hinders) a specific type of elite to be formed. In this respect societies with a developed free market economy established democratic system and efficient inclusive institutions are more likely to enable and promote the formation of developmental business elites while societies with non - market or p lanned economy non - democratic system and exclusive institutions are more likely to enable and promote rent - seeking business elites. In order to detach these factors it is necessary to analyze country’s (society’s) profile thus we have set a frame of s ocial political economic and cultural factors which we will refer to as ” the complex of exogenous factors ” . These were further divided in two separate groups which are still mutually connected and interdependent. The two groups are: 1.) Socio - cultural factors and 2.) Soci o - economic factors. The first group consists of : processes of state building and nation building institutions and the process of modernization and transition and it represent s macro components of business elite’s formation. While the second group consists of three Bourdieu’s capitals: social capital economic capital and cultural capital and represent s both; macro components and micro components of business elite ’ s formation. The two groups of factors are analyzed in more details in what follows. The aim of the article is to analyz e the formation role and profile of business elite. But to understand better the whole concept of the analysis and the whole idea we have set the research as a comparative frame comparing countries with different paradigmatic model of emergence and development . We have chosen to compare: 1.) Switzerland the United States of Americ a and the EU - 3 (Great Britain France Germany) as countries representing developed Western democracies/economies. 2.) Slovenia Russia and the Ukraine as countries of the ex - communist (ex - socialist) block. Journal of Universal Excellence pp. A12 – A36 . A 14 3.) Brazil India and China as other three countries of the BRIC group . Such a comparative frame will allow us more applicable reliable and verifiable results. In addition th e research algorithm is set in the way to make a distin ction between the two types of business elite; developmental and rent - seeking one. It c onsists of theoretical analysis of the socio - cultural factors and quantitative analysis of macro - economic indicators measured on annual basis by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and presented in its annual Global Competitiveness Report within research of countries ’ developmental potentials. In this respect we will be dealing with the research question of how do socio - cultural and soci o - economic factors shape the basis for the emergen ce of a specific type of elite and how do they affect its role in a specific society. 2 Defining b usiness elite s Before presenting the research and results it is necessary to highlight the topic of elites more specifically the business elite s . Thus d eriving from very first authors dealing with elites Pareto ( 1915) we define the latter as a privileged group of individuals who form the top of society. According to Pareto elite is an internally fragmented group of people with the highest index of activity. These people gather in three main segment s of elite i.e. political economic and cultural associated with specific attributes i.e. power economic resources and knowledge . In addition to these three main elite’s segments Mills (1965) defines also th e power elite as a group of individuals holding the top positions in economic sphere being thus connected with attributes of power and money. From this perspective it can be claim that these attributes or resources are mutually connected and occur in various combinations in practice . As the article deals with analyzing the profile of business elite we will deal only with this specific segment . In this respect we derive from Figueroa ( 2002 2008 ) who principally deals with economic elite by defining them as a privileged group of people in the economic sphere who hold the ownership of the means of production and control economic processes thus having a high concentration of ( physical /economic ) capital and income in the form of profits . Nevertheless we can apply his definitions to the business elite adding to this definition Ipsos Media CT ’s (2010) conceptualizations business elites and economic capita
Online Access:	http://www.fos.unm.si/media/pdf/RUO/06_The_impact_of_exogenous_factors_on_business_elite_s_formation_comparing_societies.pdf