Introduction
Symbolic capital is described as a resource of “honorability” that is maintained by specified behaviors (“honor behaviors”) that reveal a specific type of individual and communal strategy that is not fully realized. It is also defined as the resources available to an individual based on honor, status, or recognition, and it serves as a measure of one’s cultural value (Basaran and Olsson, 2018). In the financial context, high-ranking executives or successful individuals enjoy respect and privileges over ordinary professionals. Understanding symbolic capital is essential for individuals who have achieved something special in life and want to rise higher. This paper presented detailed research on symbolic capital in a social context. It comprises several distinct chapters, including a literature review, results, discussions, and conclusions.
Literature Review
The chapter explores the applicability of economics as symbolic capital in the leadership and management of financial institutions. Previous research explores the role of the content of courses taught in school and their applicability in industrial scenarios. However, they do not explain the relationship between economic knowledge as capital to leadership and decision making. Symbolic capital, according to theorists, is accumulated primarily through the achievement of the social responsibilities that lead one to achieve status. Symbolic capital, like financial capital, is ‘rational’ in the sense that it may be easily turned into an anchorage advantage in real-life situations (Portes and Stepick, 1993). Symbolic capital differs from financial capital in that it is limited, and the historical environment in which it was accumulated may be volatile (Stoller, 2010). To completely explain symbolic capital’s significance across cultures, Basaran and Olsson (2018) argue that it must be identified within the cultural and historical context in which it arose.
Objects can have symbolic capital because they are abstract representations of their surroundings. As a symbolic reflection of the land’s cultural worth, this capital may be integrated with the constructed environment, or urban form, of a city (Ihlen, 2018). Landmarks, for example, are often symbolic and useful. Because they have symbolic importance, they become landmarks. This reciprocal link gives the landmark cultural or environmental significance while also conferring prestige on its surroundings (Gerhards et al., 2018). In the socio-political arena and general leadership, individuals who have contributed immensely to the success of their communities in finances, wars, or humanitarian aid are viewed as heroes. Such individuals stand a higher chance of securing votes as they enjoy symbolic capital over their competitors.
High-ranking institutions are concerned about producing skilled leaders in the economic sector to head banks, businesses, and other financial institutions. The institutions aim at creating a first class that will govern many of society’s influential economic institutions (Ihlen, 2018). The institutions impart students with knowledge in economics, business administration, financial analysis, and conventional analytical frameworks and management techniques (Vershinina and Rodgers, 2020). The contents are considered important for students to intellectually and technically comprehend modern economy. The contents are taught in graduate and undergraduate teaching as well.
Consecrating students remains one of the most essential informal and symbolic roles of business institutions. They elevate the students’ spiritual and moral standards by providing them with the technical and professional qualifications to lead in the society and economy (Rodgers et al., 2019). To achieve this, the institutions reproduce their curricula to fit the academic, social, and industrial standards and prestige. The schools take part in social networking opportunities that expose their learners to a group of venerated professionals with the technical and moral standards needed for leaders (Zukin, 1996). Elite business institutions are invaluable places where important capital is assembled, traded, and accumulated in various economic, cultural, and social guises (Bin et al., 2021; Rodgers et al., 2019). Consecration essentially entails imbuing a human individual or institution with higher social, moral, artistic, and even spiritual attributes to increase their value.
Economics, manifested by the discipline’s social, political, and scientific prestige, is a crucial but underappreciated ‘mechanism’ of elite business schools’ consecration (Bin et al., 2021). Economics and finance are essential for a learner’s control of the dynamic economy (Desrochers et al., 2018). It is also crucial for the moral and social uplifting of leaders, reflecting economics’ static position in the society (Desrochers et al.,2019). The ‘Nobel Prize in Economics is a good example of this uplifting recognition. Even some of the world’s finest economists have questioned the belief in markets. The faith in markets that we see today is largely based on contemporary economics, which is reinforced by this prize (Lareau et al., 2018), highlighting the medal’s consecrating significance.
Economic consecration is mainly concerned with raising their experts, imparting them with higher spiritual and moral characteristics, and improving their decision-making capabilities (Lindqvist, 2021). Economists are frequently regarded as an authority in policy-making and public discourse. They have control over significant national and international organizations such as government agencies, national banks, and private corporations; this is due not just to their superior technical and analytical ability, but also to their socially exalted standing (Willig, 2020). Their social supremacy as a power elite underscores economics’ unique status as an important symbolic capital of elite business schools.
Results
This section presents the findings of the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) as a world-class business institution. SSE was established in 1909 and has grown to one of the most successful business institutions worldwide, producing high-notch business executives and leaders. Sweden witnessed significant industrial growth in the nineteenth century, prompting the need to train highly-skilled management personnel. The forefathers in Swedish business and industry acknowledged such leaders would need special training to fill the gaps. These industry heavyweights rallied Stockholm’s business leaders and executives in 1906, forming the Stockholm School of Economics Association with the primary objective of realizing the ideal of a Swedish business school. SSE was established three years later and has since undergone both gradual and rapid developments, raising it to its current status.
The Bologna Process agreement impacted the quality of education provided in European Universities after establishing consistent standards of quality. The Bachelor’s and Master’s programs that we are familiar with now superseded SSE’s program structure. SSE expanded its program offering a year after the move by taking over a retail-focused program from Detaljhögskolan I Norrtälje. The curriculum, now known as the BSc Program in Retail Management, is supported exclusively by the retail industry, making it unusual in Sweden’s academic landscape.
Discussion
The results reaffirm the concepts presented in the literature review. Several national endeavors to establish academic schools for the instruction of trade preceded the formal formation and early growth of the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE) in 1909. The company began to grow at a regular pace only after the Wallenbergs financiers became involved. André Oscar Wallenberg was already interested in economics and, in the 1860s, organized a large economics convention in the country. The future financing agency of the school, the SSE Association, was founded in 1906 to foster the formation and development of a business school in Stockholm. Erixon (2018) argues that the SSE would be mostly self-funded and was viewed as critical to producing more “completely trained young men to be used in higher positions in practical life”.
Over time, students and business frontmen began to argue that economics was not important to gaining the necessary knowledge to run a successful firm as it was unduly academic. Since 1920, economics as a taught topic has diminished, while business management has increased. Although SSE was initially conceptualized as a scientific institution, there was a need to include economic studies in its curriculum. This implies that the symbolic value of economics was appreciated from the inception stages of the institution. Influential economists pushed for the establishment of SSE as a solely business school as it had been previously planned. In a nutshell, economics and leadership had an invaluable symbolic role in linking SSE to its cultural and social obligations. As a result, the institution focuses on producing top-notch academic heroes and business leaders who fit in the most competitive industry and job markets.
Conclusion
The paper studied the role of economics in other disciplines such as leadership, decision making, and banking. Since economics is marked as symbolic capital, its application in the aforementioned sectors (disciplines ), has proven worth applying in several domains (Erixon, 2021). The study of SSE was based on statistics, observations, contemporary data, and much more to come up with the conclusions Geissinger et al., 2020). Without a question, business schools are dedicated to more than just economics. Today, business schools are not only known for their ability to produce highly qualified economists, but also for top-notch leaders in finance and banking disciplines. Employees associated with sich institutions find it easy to secure high-paying jobs due to the reputation built by the institutions(Laurell and Sandström, 2018). For historical and contemporary causes, economics must be seen as a rather important aspect of this endeavor. In today’s neoliberal world, economics (and finance) training is critical to business schools’ socialization of students as future leaders.
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