The objective of this study is to find out the roles of voluntary organizations in the process of social value creation in a community.
Social value is defined here as a value to put the interests of other people and community first beyond oneself....
The objective of this study is to find out the roles of voluntary organizations in the process of social value creation in a community.
Social value is defined here as a value to put the interests of other people and community first beyond oneself. While many factors could work in the social value creation, this study focuses on the roles of voluntary organizations in the social value creation in a community.
As voluntary organizations share informations, ideas and values among the members, they promote solidarity and cooperation and thereby produce social capital. They could further enhance social capital at large as they interact with other people, other voluntary organizations and other social entities. After reviewing existing literature on social capital, voluntary organization and social values, this study developed an analytic framework to investigate how voluntary organizations help create a social value in a community. For this, the Sungmisan community, in Mapo gu Seoul, has been selected as a case study. The Sungmisan community is selected as a case because of its uniqueness. The history of the community is rather long, many voluntary organizations are working, and more importantly, a social value can be identified in the community when the community faces a development project of the Seoul Metropolitan Government, which is perceived a wrong project, in other words, a irreconcilable social value by the community residents.
Major findings of the Sungmisan community case analysis are as follows:
First, the voluntary organizations in the Sungmisan community were based on the community and have self-organizing characteristics. The community-based and self-organizing characteristics of the Sungmisan voluntary organizations could make them sensitive to residents' needs in daily life and thus interested in their problems of the community. In doing so, they interacted with their people in the community and could set up a network among residents. As a result, the voluntary organizations encouraged the residents to have an interest in thier community and led them to serve their community.
Second, the voluntary organizations in the Sungmisan community worked continuously and achieved some beneficial results to the community residents. Regular activities and those outcomes of the voluntary organizations appealed to local people and could build up some trust in them.
Third, the voluntary organizations in the Sungmisan community engaged in local problems and formed some connection with the community. For instance, 'Infant care cooperatives' and 'Doore cooperatives' organized some networking among the residents. In other word, as the voluntary organizations connected with community residents, they could build up networking.
Fourth, the voluntary organizations in the Sungmisan community engaged in various activities. With a number of activities of the voluntary organizations, they could keep the community residents interested in the voluntary organizations and connected to diverse population of the residents, thereby could form and lead public opinion in the community. This study concludes with some policy implications drawn from the above findings.