This theme emphasises the need to mobilise the stock of tangible and intangible resources available in order to create tangible and intangible assets for use by the members of society, which leads to the creation of different types of social value (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3 and Chapter 8, Section 8.3). The participant interviews revealed a number of tangible and intangible resources that enable
160 | P a g e social value creation in society. These resources included: cultural, economic, ethical, political, natural/environmental, human/intellectual, social, religious and physical resources.
Social value is created when individuals communicate and interact with each other. For example, social value is created when individuals communicate with their neighbours, and/or network and build partnerships with other individuals to exchange ideas and make professional decisions to create social value at organisational, community and societal levels. Social resources that help build trust within and among groups of society, enable social value to be created in society (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.1).
“If you are improving housing outcomes you are not doing it at an expense of destroying trust, health outcomes or family networks…because you are moving people from one place to another….it’s about thinking in a more pro-social way.” (Participant 38, PUB)
“You could have mundane levels of social value just because people talk to each other or call their neighbours or whatever…to me there is social value in that.“ (Participant 2, THD)
Social value tends to be created when individuals utilise their expertise and knowledge (i.e. human resources) for decision-making and act pragmatically. Individuals involved in creating social value are professionally trained and possess the know-how of the trade that also help them transfer their existing skills and knowledge across industries and sectors. Human resources acts as a pre-requisite that enables individuals to confidently create social value by utilising their own skills and expertise (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.5).
“We could create social value by providing training and employment support.” (Participant 26, PUB)
161 | P a g e “I realised I could use my skills to flip my economic imperative to private organisations and use those same strategic frameworks to unlock resources.” (Participant 37, THD)
Social value can be created by the members of society acting morally and behaving ethically. Utilising ethical resources enables organisations to conduct their businesses in legitimate and equitable ways, and in the real world, ethical resources help society to increase public participation through inclusive democratic processes to build a fairer society (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.2). Ethical resources enable an honest and unbiased social value creation process that also affects resource mobilisation in society at individual, community, organisational and societal levels.
“It is the right thing to do and doing good is good business….I think it is the moral compass.” (Participant 5, PRV)
“You can define the gaps in society to create a fairer society which is good for everyone…business… as well as the individual.” (Participant 37, THD)
Economic resources help individuals translate their ideas into action in the real world. Economic resources are invested by government organisations to develop safer communities, by commercial organisations to make profits and deliver social value through corporate social responsibility initiatives. Social organisations also maximise benefits provided to the most disadvantaged sections of society (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.6). The availability of economic resources impacts considerably on the amount of social value created and the level at which social value is created.
“In a big city or a town regeneration programme a lot of money is thrown at it to make it a nicer place… that will have social value because everyone around here will think oh that’s much nicer place and feel better about being here and probably respect the environment a bit more so that’s one level of social value.” (Participant 2, THD)
162 | P a g e “I would say when you are achieving value for money make sure you are doing it in a way that is consistent with social value …in such a way that’s putting people in charge.” (Participant 38, PUB)
Individuals utilise physical resources (community infrastructure) to create social value in society. Although various organisations invest in physical resources to be able to run their operations in society, it can be proposed that it is essential that whatever happens in the community benefits the community and improves the lives of the members of the community (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.7). The physical presence of built infrastructures along with a value-sensitive approach of common importance and collective good enables the creation of social value (Ungar, 2011).
“In order to create social value investing in terms of money, resources, people, time, all of those in activities that will affect behaviour change and difference that will create outcomes in their long term impact.” (Participant 14, THD)
“Social value is about businesses who invest in the community… the environment and their workforce.” (Participant 8, PUB)
Individuals tend to benefit from their connections and networks with policy-makers in organisations and government departments to create social value. Political resources enable social value creation through policy-makers’ decision-making (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.3). Social value is maximised when the government utilises its power to support individuals, communities and organisations, and tends to be created through the implementation of organisational laws as well as governmental laws.
“I think those who develop policies and implement them have the responsibility to ignore public opinion and do the opposite…even though other times you have the responsibility to listen as well…so social value is not something that works ground-up, it also requires people with expertise to take responsibility.” (Participant 20, SOC)
163 | P a g e “It’s about the political representative being more engaged with the community centres and with their local charities and with the good organisations.” (Participant 27, PUB)
Social value can be created through building the culture of an organisation or society. Cultural resources can be developed by developing normative behaviours and social values that can be inculcated by immediate and/or extended families (Sarracino et al., 2011). In organisations where social value forms a part of the organisational culture, creation of social value is the most likely outcome (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.4). Cultural resources, it can be argued, provide an essential environment in which social value could thrive at various distinct levels in society.
“I think it’s the culture of the organisation for which you are working and you spend most of your time working vs. full time in life these days.” (Participant 5, PRV)
“More social value gets created when you have norms that is for sure…where it is a necessary culture to deliver social value.” (Participant 35, THD)
Environmental resources (such as: forests, rivers and climate) create social value as they are utilised by human beings for different purposes in different ways. In order to create social value, it is important for individuals and organisations to reduce environmental destruction and consider broader environmental issues at the time of decision-making (discussed in Chapter 2, Section 2.3.8). For instance, organisations operating in society need to consider the value that is created and/or destroyed during the production process (Anaman and Agyei-Sasu, 2014; Pretty and Ward, 2001). Environmental resources are an important factor for social value creation as the members of society and organisations depend on the environmental resources and utilise them for functioning in society.
“Social value can be created by businesses thinking about their economic activities, thinking about their impact on communities, their staff, and their environment.” (Participant 38, PUB)
164 | P a g e “If a business is creating money….that is one reflection of productivity, but of course the cost of the environment or the cost to the society isn’t necessarily included.” (Participant 35, THD)
Individuals are also utilising religious or spiritual resources to reach out to people in order to create social value and social impact in society. Religious resources refer to possessing faith and belief in a particular religion of choice, and are utilised by religious leaders in guiding the actions and behaviours of individuals in society (discussed in Chapter 8, Section 8.2). Religious or spiritual resources act as a preliminary guiding force to create social value for those believing in a religion or spirituality.
“I utilise faith communities as the context in which people can associate with one
another…and have sense of neighbourliness and a sense of valuing the other.“ (Participant 21, SOC)
“If you look at faith that is our moral guidance…and if faith would sweep under our value of faith then that would be the downfall because we don’t have a set of rules that we can work to… so faith is important.” (Participant 40, SOC)
Since all individuals utilise the combined resources others involved in social value creation to create an asset, this theme is entitled ‘resource mobilisation for social value creation’ as this theme discusses the societal resources available and their contribution to social value creation.