Social Capital Theory - an overview (2024)

Social Capital

Social capital theory contends that social relationships are resources that can lead to the development and accumulation of human capital. For example, a stable family environment can support educational attainment and support the development of highly valued and rewarded skills and credentials. In evolutionary terms, social capital can be defined as any feature of a social relationship that yields reproductive benefits. According to Savage and Kanazawa (2002, 2004), humans have evolved preferences for companionship in general, and specific preferences for cues that signal higher levels of social capital. Since evolved preferences for certain types of social relationships should have been selected in the EEA, we can expect to observe gender differences that reflect the division of labor in foraging societies. For example, females can be expected to value and derive emotional satisfaction from membership in small social networks comprising close personal relationships constructed from strong social ties. These types of relationships would be especially adaptive for women by providing assistance in foraging and caring for children. Males would be expected to benefit more from membership in larger social networks constructed from weak ties that would constitute hunting groups, political alliances, and fighting parties. Males would benefit especially from forms of social capital that would confer resources and social status.

Savage and Kanazawa (2002) contend that reformulating sociological explanations of crime in terms of evolutionary theory can provide new insights about deterrents to crime. Specifically, choice and social control theories, cultural deviance theories, and strain theories all suggest that the threat of losing social bonds can be a powerful inhibitor of deviant or criminal behavior. Evolutionary theory invites predictions that social ties and relationships that were most closely related to reproductive success in the EEA are especially likely to produce a deterrent effect against deviance and crime. For women, behavior that would jeopardize close personal relationships would be particularly costly, thus, the threat of losing those relationships would deter such behavior. For men, social capital that yields material resources and social status is especially valuable, and the threat of losing those resources would be likely to inhibit deviant or criminal behavior. This type of reasoning is consistent with empirical findings that document male sensitivity to status loss or degradation.

Social Capital Theory, Chain Migration, and College Choice

Coleman (1988) maintained that social networks provided the opportunity for the exchange of information. However, the quality of information exchanged was largely based on the functional components of social capital, trust, and norms. High levels of trust between individuals facilitated the exchange of more knowledge, while norms regulated and influenced behavior related to this exchange. Within education, social capital is the relationships between students, families, communities, and teachers available to support and motivate students toward academic success. Further, social capital theory captures the effects of the school, parents, and community on a students' learning environment (Croninger and Lee, 2001).

Social capital has been used on research that includes Latino students to look at the role of institutional agents on high-school students' educational and occupational expectations (Stanton-Salazar and Dornbusch, 1995); to examine the influence of familial and nonfamilial member social capital on the study habits of Mexican-American eighth graders in comparison to Vietnamese youth (Goyette and Conchas, 2002); and has also been used to understand how familial and school staff positively influence (or hinder) postsecondary access for Latinas (González et al., 2003).

Meanwhile, Person and Rosenbaum (2006) used chain migration theory to examine access to college information and the enrollment decisions of Latino students at 14 2-year colleges. They argued “research on immigrant communities can inform the study of college enrollment, as it encourages the researcher to examine enrollment and persistence as part of a continuous process” (p. 52). Person and Rosenbaum (2006) also suggested that the structures that facilitated migration to a new community were likely to influence an individual's future experiences. Future experiences may include career as well as academic endeavors.

This revised college-choice model allows us to understand that for Latinos, the decision to attend college cannot be conceptualized as a natural progression that occurs in their educational trajectory. As noted by Yosso and Solórzano (2006), Latinos experience significant challenges in the educational pipeline, with many of them leaking out before the completion of high school. The educational opportunities that Latino students envision for their future, as well as the subsequent choices they make about their postsecondary options, are shaped by their access to educational learning opportunities available at their schools as well as the resources and information available to them at home. Latinos, like other ethnic/racial groups, who have parents with little or no college background often face the daunting task of navigating their academic endeavors and college-choice process alone (Ceja, 2006; González et al., 2003). Many of these students are not well informed about accessing higher education and they also lack the instrumental knowledge, mentorship, and social support network necessary to negotiate their academic preparation and college options (e.g., Cooper et al., 1998). In fact, research has shown that ethnic/racial minorities, including Latinos, receive poor and conflicting academic mentorship from institutional agents, such as high-school guidance counselors, resulting in gatekeeping of college resources (Stanton-Salazar, 2004).

This Latino/Chicano college-choice model takes the educational conditions of Latino students into account by placing issues of access to college information and the negotiation of such resources at the center of the college-choice process. These educational conditions are undoubtedly molded by external factors such as the surrounding community and/or school. The model further accounts for community college and transfer students, who may not necessarily follow an immediate or linear progression toward higher education. Should transfer students desire and are able to transfer; this model takes into consideration the second college-decision-making process (see Figure 2 – time 2). Unlike previous college-choice models, the proposed model highlights student agency and the influence of family, peers, schools, and the community on the Latino/Chicano college-choice process (Pérez, 2007). A conceptual model that better reflects the college-choice decision-making process for Latino students can assist us in enhancing their post-secondary prospects by highlighting critical areas in need of resources. This model emphasizes the need to involve all constituents (e.g., families, peers, and schools) to truly improve equality of postsecondary opportunity for Latino and Chicano students. Finally, this type of model can be helpful in understanding the college-choice experiences of students outside of the United States. For example, the chain migration focus of this model provides an alternate framework for capturing Hamrick's (2007) finding that Pakistani students who enroll in US higher education institutions tend to choose schools that are near relatives or colleges where other Pakistanis are enrolled. Likewise, the applicability of this model can be tested to understand Kaufman's (2008) research on how perceived costs of higher education affects college attendance in Mexico, or how college choices in Portugal are influenced by proximity to home, parents, teachers, and access to college marketing resources (Raposo and Alves, 2007).

Conclusion

At this point, four of the five general categories of migrant motivations have been well-theorized. Material improvement is covered by neoclassical economics and the new economics of labor migration, risk management is theorized by the new economics of labor migration, symbolic gratification by cultural capital theory, and social connection by social capital theory. These reasons for migration all reflect core human motivations that psychologists have identified as intrinsic to the human condition (Fiske, 2003). Although threat evasion has not received systematic theoretical treatment to the same degree, self-preservation is clearly a fundamental human motivation and recent research has identified environmental change and civil violence as two potentially important drives of migration in the twenty-first century.

To date, most studies have considered climate change and violence as two independent threats, each of which might potentially contribute to the flow of migrants around the world. Recent work suggests, however, that climate change and civil violence are, in fact, causally interrelated. Indeed, Hsiang etal. (2011) show that outbursts of civil violence are closely tied to variations in the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). They found the probability of a civil conflict erupting doubles during El Niño versus La Niña years, and that the ENSO may have been behind 21% of all civil conflicts between 1950 and 2005. Given the potential of climate change to influence the frequency and severity of weather events such as El Niño, climate change not only has the potential to generate migration directly through displacement but also indirectly by triggering civil conflicts in affected areas throughout the world.

The Concept of Social Capital

Adler and Kwon (2002) provide the core intuition behind social capital: whereas market relationships are characterized by economic exchanges in which individuals trade goods or services for money, interpersonal relationships are characterized by social exchanges in which individuals exchange favors. Anytime an individual grants a favor to another individual, heor she will receive a ‘credit’ or goodwill which can be used as a resource to facilitate the attainment of personal outcomes in the future. Social capital theory suggests that interpersonal relations create value for individuals as they provide resources which can be used for the achieving desired outcomes. Yet, although the core argument of social capital is clear and scholars seem to have converging opinions about it, what exactly does the concept of social capital capture? Does it reflect the social relations, their value, or the resources? Scholars have not reached agreement on that, and several conceptualizations have been used to characterize social capital.

In the first conceptualization, social capital in organizations equals social relations, generally described as the structure of social networks. According to Galunic etal. (2012: p. 1215) “social capital is primarily about the relationships that actors maintain, characterized in terms of such features as number, strength, and density.” Burt (1992: p. 9) identifies social capital as “friends, colleagues, and more general contacts through whom you receive opportunities to use your financial and human capital.” Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) acknowledge that one of the most popular conceptualizations of social capital focuses only on the structure of network relationships developed in organizations.

In the second conceptualization, social networks are exogenous to the definition of social capital. Social capital and social networks are two independent but causally related concepts. More specifically, social networks are said to be the cause of social capital. In Inkpen and Tsang (2005) the authors specify that social capital originates from social networks. Gulati and Gargiulo (1999) specify that social networks create social capital and identify social capital as the assets tied to the manager's network. Burt (2001) explicitly mentions that network structures create social capital. Hence, if social networks create social capital, they are exogenous to its definition and social capital is conceptualized as the result of social networks. More specifically, social capital is identified with the resources which are provided by social networks. Adler and Kwon (2002: p. 23) argue that “social capital is the goodwill available to individuals and groups. Its source lies in the structure and content of the actor's social relations. Its effects flow from the information, influence, and solidarity it makes available to the actor.” Bourdieu (1985: p. 248) defines social capital as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition.”

In the third conceptualization, social capital refers to both social networks and the resources provided with them. In the definition of social capital we find two elements: the social networks and the resources. Here social networks are no longer exogenous to the definition of social capital. From Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998: p. 243), we read that social capital is defined as “the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, and derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit. Social capital thus comprises both the network and the assets that may be mobilized through that network.” We can read from Boxman etal. (1991: p. 52) that social capital is “the number of people who can be expected to provide support and the resources those people have at their disposal.”

Although authors seem to disagree significantly on the theoretical conceptualization of social capital, when it comes to its empirical operationalization we find far more convergence. No matter how scholars define social capital, they most often tend to measure it by capturing the interpersonal relationships that individuals develop in organizations. The resources provided by social capital are mostly assumed to represent the explanatory mechanisms which relate interpersonal relationships to individual outcomes of interest. Yet, not all interpersonal relationships represent social capital. Coleman (1990: p. 302) specifies that “social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having two characteristics' in common: They all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure.” As both Burt (1992) and Coleman (1990) acknowledge, social capital is therefore composed of the specific set of interpersonal relationships which create value for individuals in organizations.

Social Trust

Political trust, some say, is part of a larger syndrome of an upbeat world view. Lane (1959: 164) argues, “Trust in elected officials is seen to be only a more specific instance of trust in mankind.” Advocates of a link between the two types of trust maintain that strong government performance makes people feel better about the government and ultimately more willing to cooperate with each other (Brehm and Rahn, 1997: 1008; Misztal, 1996: 198). Citizens rest easier when dealing with strangers if they know that government will enforce contracts. Rahn etal. (1997: 24) argue that when people trust their government, they are more likely to believe that they can influence it. This growing sense of efficacy makes people more likely to trust each other.

Zmerli and Newton (2008: 707) find strong relationships between the two types of trust, arguing that “…according to social capital theory social and political trust are closely associated and mutually supportive….The theory has prima facie plausibility and, as a basic proposition of political sociology that tries to link the social with the political, a great deal of potential theoretical power.” Yet, they admit that the “the claim…has poor empirical support.”

They are correct. At the aggregate level, the two forms of trust are highly correlated: from 1964 to 2010, the r² between the two trust measures is 0.56 in the United States. Yet, Uslaner (2002: Chapter 5) shows that the foundations of political and social trust are distinct. Evaluations of the state of the economy and of specific political leaders shape only political trust, not social trust. Longer-term measures of optimism only determine social trust.

The individual-level correlations are small for both trustingovernment and confidence (Uslaner, 2002: 150–153).As Hetherington (2005: 9) also argues, this argument “…conflates two very different concepts….In American life, one can easily identify people who trust other people but do not trust government, and with a little more difficulty, one can also identify the reverse.”

It is not quite so problematic as Hetherington claims. Trust in government goes up and down with the state of the economy: It rose sharply when the economy recovered from recessions in the transitions from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan and from George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton. It rose again when the country faced a common threat after the 9/11 attacks. But social trust remained low (except for a brief period right after the terrorist attacks). Trust in government responds to the economics and politics of the moment, trust in people to the long-term optimism rather than to today's economic report (Uslaner, 2002: 153–158).

Why, then, do Zmerli and Newton, among others, find stronger relationships between the two types of trust than do others? Is it context? Uslaner primarily examines data from the United States, but this is not the answer, because Mishler and Rose (2005) use data from Russia and Kaase (1999: 13) focuses on Europe and concludes that the correlation between the two types of trust ‘is small indeed.’ The principal difference between the analyses of Uslaner, on the one hand, and Zmerli and Newton, on the other, is the measurement of trust. They use theESS and the United States Citizenship Involvement Democracy survey. (See http://www.uscidsurvey.org/ (accessed 31.12.13.).) Both use the 11-point trust scales while previous studies employed the dichotomous social trust measure and the 4-point trust in government measure. They claim that these scales are “more reliable measures of attitudes and values” (Zmerli and Newton, 2008: 714). The correlations using the 11-point measures are uniformly stronger across European nations and the United States than are those for dichotomized measures (constructed from the 11-point scales) and Zmerli and Newton (2008: 715–717) take this as evidence in support of the new measures.

It is unclear that the higher correlations for measures based upon 11-point scales are superior to those based on dichotomies or four-point scales. The 11-point scales are problematic (Uslaner, 2013a). Romanians were given both the dichotomous and 11-point social trust questions in the CID: The r² between them is a mere 0.164. Seventy-six percent of Romanians scoring 4 on the 11-point measure are mistrusters on the dichotomous measure, as are 69% directly in the middle at 5, and even 58% who scored a 6 on the expanded measure.

Uslaner (2002: 68–74) showed that American respondents to a ‘think aloud’ experiment about trust understood the question and also that responses are quite stable over time. More complex measures have not fared so well (Uslaner, 2014c) over time or as predictors of outcomes that he demonstrated in earlier work (Uslaner, 2002: Chapter 7). The 11-point scale may be artificially leading us to expect that social and political trust stem from common roots, when plenty of evidence suggests otherwise.

4.14 Social capital theory

Social capital theory (SCT) was first defined by Bourdieu (1985) as “the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance or recognition”. Its basic premise is that a network provides value to its members by allowing them access to the social resources that are embedded within the network (Bourdieu, 1985; Florin, Lubatkin, & Schulze, 2003).

These social networks need to be developed through investment strategies oriented towards the institutionalization of group relations, which are reliable sources of benefits (Portes, 1998). In general, social capital can be broken down into two elements: (a) the social relationship itself, which allows individuals to claim access to resources possessed by their associates, and (b) the amount and quality of those resources (Bourdieu, 1985; Portes, 1998).

This theory has been applied widely in several research areas. Although very few studies have related SCT to big data, it is possible to construct a relationship with SCM (Hazen et al., 2016). In terms of SCT in the supply chain, interactions among its members lead to wide acceptance of the norms and values of that chain, as well as the sharing of information, data, and analysis to improve the overall performance of the network (Chiu, Hsu, & Wang, 2006; Hazen et al., 2016; Huysman & Wulf, 2006). According to Kankanhalli, Tan, and Wei, (2005), social capital provides the conditions necessary for knowledge and information exchange to occur.

On this basis, Hazen et al. (2016) argue that SCT should be applied to study big data in the SCM context, with the purpose of improving sustainable performance. The authors state that more research is needed into how social capital affects the adoption of big data for supply chain sustainability under competition, considering inter-firm and inter-supply chain relations. Furthermore, it remains to be investigated how information sharing through BDA impacts the importance of structural and relational supply chain network components.

4.3 Theoretical frameworks

Theoretical frameworks that underpinned the studies included ‘Social Capital Theory’, which suggests that positive changes occur when social relationships within communities are benevolent (Kerber et al., 2015). The ‘incivility spiral’, which was introduced by Anderson and Pearson (Anderson and Pearson, 1999, p 458), underpinned the study conducted by Laschinger et al. (2013). The key notion is that, when exposed to uncivil behaviour in the workplace, an individual will have an emotional reaction (anger, fear, sadness) that may result in the desire to retaliate. Laschinger and Grau (2012) built upon Leiter and Maslach’s (2004) original Six Areas of Worklife model, which has demonsrated the relationship between the organisational precursors of work engagement and burnout. These were named manageable workload, control, reward, community, fairness and values (Leiter and Maslach, 2004).

Laschinger et al. (2012) used Avolio et al.’s (2004) authentic leadership model in their study, which investigated the impact of authentic leadership upon new graduate nurses’ experiences of workplace bullying, burnout and retention. Authentic leadership, as described by Avolio et al. (2004), is a ‘pattern of transparent and ethical leader behaviour that encourages openness in sharing information needed to make decisions while accepting input from those who follow (Avolio et al., 2009, p. 424). Authentic leaders establish honest and open dialogue with employees and nurture compassionate relationships (Laschinger et al., 2012).

Lastly, ‘Oppression Theory’, based upon the work of Freire (1970), is used, which proposes that members of a group who are oppressed internalise the opinion of themselves held by the oppressor and then replicate the oppressor’s behaviour (Kelly and Ahern, 2009; Mooney, 2007; Reuter, 2014). Mooney (2007) cautioned that if nurses continue to feel powerlessness then the cycle of oppression will continue. A Chinese proverb cited in Feng and Tsai (2012) also describes this endemic oppressive phenomenon stating that,’ A daughter-in-law who suffers will one day become a mother-in-law’, which infers that those who have suffered negative workplace behaviour may one day become the perpetrators.

Abstract

In recent years, there has been considerable interest in social capital theory in both research and policy arenas. Social capital has been associated with many aspects of improvements in health, environment and development. This paper assesses the theoretical support for a social capital based analysis of environment and health issues with a focus on the water-health nexus in low and middle income countries. We review conceptualisation of social capital by Pierre Bourdieu in relation to his concepts of “fields” and “habitus” as well as other conceptualisations of social capital by James Coleman and Robert Putnam. We integrate these authors' ideas with ecosocial analysis of social and geographical patterns of access to safe water, adequate sanitation and hygiene and the resulting health impacts. Further, we develop a conceptual framework for linking social capital and health through the water-health nexus. The framework focuses on the role of social capital in improving water-related knowledge, attitudes and practices as well as facilitating collective action towards improving access to water and sanitation. The proposed framework will facilitate critical engagement with the pathways through which social processes and interactions influence health within the context of access to water, sanitation and hygiene in low and middle income countries.

2.3 Data analysis

An inductive-deductive approach was used for content analysis. An initial deductive set of codes was produced from Social Capital theories on personal network management (trust, communication, power distribution, risk sharing).The researchers coded parts of the literature accordingly; however, new factors emerged which affect the JFM process and outcomes. With the literature findings and the lessons learnt from the case studies (i.e. good practices and policy or practitioners' recommendations), we analysed the information based on the challenges that forest owners and practitioners face when developing a JFM. The list of challenges was built iteratively so that when a new challenge emerged, the articles were revisited in order to find possible references to it. This step resulted in 14 challenges, which were finally refined into 12 by merging those dealing with similar aspects.

3.2.1.2 Networks

In the case of network structures, it is important to be connected to as many peers as possible in order to have access to the information flow. In the reviewed studies, networks are described through Social capital theories and Social network analysis, which reveals how the information flows between a group of network members (Ranieri etal., 2012; Schlager, Farooq, Fusco, Schank, & Dwyer, 2009; Smith Risser, 2013; Tseng & Kuo, 2014). The study of a network structure enables the researchers to detect weak ties between participants and bridging roles (Granovetter, 1983, 1973).

Other models used in the study of networks are Inquiry as a stance (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1999, 2009), Dialogue genres (Burbules, 1993), e-moderation model (Salmon, 2004), Social objects and design for sociality and Connectivism (Siemens, 2005).