The roles of human capital and social capital in the economic integration of new arrivals from Mainland China to Hong Kong

Although it has been hypothesized in the literature that both human capital and social capital are important for the economic performance of new immigrants, few studies have examined these relationships empirically, especially in understudied populations such as Chinese populations. This study simultaneously examines the roles of human capital and social capital in the economic integration of new arrivals from Mainland China to Hong Kong, using a random sample of immigrants. In the early stage of immigration (less than 6 months after arrival), we find little support for the presumed positive effects of both human capital and social capital on employment status among new arrivals in Hong Kong. Follow-up studies are underway to investigate the dynamic relationship between social capital and economic integration in this group of new arrivals, and whether social capital, especially friendship networks, plays a more important role in the economic integration of new immigrants 1 or 2 years after arrival.     

How social ties contribute to collective actions on social media: A social capital approach

In public relations research into civic engagement, the influence of social ties on the individual level has not been adequately studied from a social capital perspective. To fill this gap, this study conducts a one-factor between subjects experiment to examine the difference, if any, between the social influence of strong ties and of weak ties on individuals’ participation intentions in regard to collective actions. This study postulates collective efficacy as a factor possibly associated with the intention to participate in collective actions. The study findings suggest that advocacy about certain social causes, such as veterans affairs, have globally positive effects on publics’ civic engagement intentions, regardless of the norms of the social network with which the individuals are connected. Furthermore, collective efficacy was found to be positively associated with participation in collective actions. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

A social capital approach to improving public relations’ efficacy: Diagnosing internal constraints on external communication

This article extends Heath's (2006) concept of fully functioning society theory (FFS) and argues that public relations can be used as a force to enhance collective social capital in communities. To serve this purpose, however, the effectiveness of an organization to serve its external publics is often dependent on the status and relationships the public relations function has developed within the organization. This paper provides a network analysis of a government agency in Jordan that illustrates the relationship between internal organizational social capital and the potential problems for establishing external relationships with publics. Implications for public relations research methods and theory are also discussed.     

Investigating the role of multilevel social capital in ethnic income inequality in the Chinese labour market

This study examines to what extent individual- and county-level social capital respectively and jointly explain the Chinese ethnic income inequality. Using two waves of the Chinese General Social Survey data, social capital is operationalised into extensivity, upper reachability, mean prestige, and range via the position generator. Results show that social capital is unevenly distributed along the ethnic line in China, minorities are in disadvantaged position in accessing social capital, especially the number of occupation accessed and mean occupational prestige, compared with Han. When cross-level interactions are taken into account, with the increase of county-level social capital, its positive effect on minorities’ income attenuates while it become stronger for Han’s income. The differential returns of social capital on income between minorities and Han may be attributable to the mean prestige of their accessed position networks. Finally, the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition analysis uncovers that when all variables are controlled for, there is still approximately 24 % of the income gap between minorities and Han remained unexplained, indicating the severe ethnic wage penalty minorities are facing in the Chinese labour market.     

Individual social capital: Accessibility and mobilization of resources embedded in social networks

The objective of the present paper is to characterize the structure of individual social networks and to provide new insights into the underlying mechanism of individual social capitalization process. In particular, we put to the test three main assumptions underlying Lin’s seminal explanatory model of individual social capital determinants (Lin, 2001). We analyzed the results of an extensive and specifically designed survey on personal networks in Spanish society (OSIM, 2011). Our findings, based on the use of Principal Component Analysis (PCA), regression and structural methods allow us to complement Lin’s general model distinguishing accessibility and mobilization of social resources. Furthermore, the empirical evidence suggests the need for introducing a significant distinction between instrumental-expert and expressive mobilization. Finally, our analysis allows us to identify the main determining factors of both forms of capitalization of personal relations.     

A dialectic perspective on the interactive relationship between social media and civic participation: the moderating role of social capital

By analyzing representative national survey data, this study explores the ways in which social media and social capital jointly affect civic participation. In particular, the study examines how the use of social media to express opinions or acquire trusted information influence citizens participatory activities in civic affairs. Our findings suggest that both social media use and social capital promote civic activities. Interestingly, this study reveals that social media exert differential effects on civic participation, depending on the individual's level of social capital, rather than having an equal impact on civic participation. The study offers a new perspective from which to examine the relationships between social media, social capital, and civic participation. The results and implications are discussed in detail below.     

Public broadcast of health communication: Extending public relations through social capital in Taiwan

This paper shows how a public media can effectively utilize its social capital, and integrate with different resources from the related non-profit organizations and corporations in public relations perspective. A case study of a high-popularity Taiwanese public traffic radio: Police Broadcasting Service (PBS) is conducted. The finding shows that the public radio can cost-effectively deliver health communication with the principle of social marketing.     

The role of social capital in the job-related regional mobility decisions of unemployed individuals

Social capital is an important factor in interregional mobility. Although most prior research has focused on its role in the job-finding process, this study investigates the function of social networks and the social capital embedded therein after an interregional job offer has been received. This subject is particularly important for the unemployed, who should be able to exploit a mobility strategy to re-enter the labour market. Unemployed persons rely on their social networks to cope with joblessness, but there is evidence that social contexts can also act as mobility traps for this group (Windzio, 2004). We examine whether the unemployed weight social capital in a unique manner when making decisions regarding mobility.To investigate these issues, we combine a factorial survey module (FSM) with data from the German “Labour market and social security” (PASS) panel study to generate representative samples of both unemployed and employed persons with a randomised mobility stimulus in the form of hypothetical interregional job offers. Our results reveal the mobilising effects of exposure to conflict-laden relationships with the social network and the household. These are particularly pronounced for unemployed persons, highlighting the importance of factors that influence decision making about mobility beyond simple economic considerations.     

Spatial effects on individual social capital: Differentiating the constraints of local occupational structures

Recent studies have paid more attention to how position-generated social capital varies by an individual’s characteristics, and less to how geographical distributions of occupations may constrain position-specific connections. By integrating two national surveys from the United States, we differentiate the extent to which individual social capital fluctuates by occupational compositions at the county, metropolis, and state levels. Multilevel analyses show that when more people at all three levels work in education, training, and library occupations, residents have a greater chance to gain access to professional-type resources. Similar spatial effects on farming and production resources, however, are more apparent at the county level. Not only does the association between individual social capital and local occupational structures vary across different occupations, but the magnitude of such spatial effects also differs by the scope of the geographical areas. The findings underscore how contextual factors and geographical location may contribute to building occupation-specific network resources.     

Making friends and communicating on Facebook: Implications for the access to social capital

In this paper, we explore the dynamics of access to social capital on Facebook. Existing approaches to network-based social capital measures are adapted to the case of Facebook and applied to the friendship and communication data of 438,851 users. These measures are correlated to user data in order to identify advantageous behavior for optimizing the possible access to social capital. We find that the access to social capital on Facebook is primarily based on a reasonable amount of active communication. Exaggerated friending and posting behavior can deteriorate the access to social capital. Furthermore, we investigate which kinds of posts are most advantageous as well as questions of homophily based on social capital.     

A comparative study on the relationship between social networking site use and social capital among Australian and Korean youth

Social network sites (SNS) have become increasingly pervasive in the daily lives of adolescents. This study explores the relationship between SNS use and perceived online social capital among adolescents using survey data from Australia and Korea. We conducted a face-to-face survey of adolescents (12–15-year-olds) in major cities in Australia (N?=?401) and Korea (N?=?644) in 2013. There was no significant difference in time spent on SNS between adolescents in the two countries; however, significant differences in the way adolescents use SNS were found. Australian adolescents tended to use SNS for group activities, whereas Koreans used it for social monitoring. There was a positive relationship between SNS use and online social capital in both countries. However, the types of social capital that were found to have a strong relationship to SNS use were different. Among Australian adolescents, SNS activities had a higher correlation with bonding social capital compared to bridging capital, whereas the result was contrasting among Korean adolescents. The impact of SNS use on online social capital differed between the two countries, showing that Australian adolescents reporting low SNS use gained online social capital if they used SNS more intensely. Finally, the impact of SNS use and culture on perceived online social capital was examined by conducting hierarchical multiple regressions. Interpersonal communication and group activities emerged as significant predictors of online social capital.     

The civility of social capital: Public relations in the public sphere,civil society,and democracy

Scholars have analyzed public relations’ role in democracy via proxy concepts like the public sphere and civil society. However, some have critiqued the public sphere on grounds of equal access and portrayed civil society as a guise for first-world imperialism. These critiques have implications for the role of public relations in the public sphere and civil society. This article suggests the normative role of public relations in democracy is best perceived as creating the social capital that facilitates access to spheres of public discussion and in maintaining relationships among those organizations that check state power. To that end, the paper argues that social capital does much to advance public relations theory and prescribe the role of public relations in democracy. Several implications for public relations from a social capital perspective are offered, including the creation of generalized societal trust, the building of cross-cutting or “weak” ties, the engagement of media on behalf of subaltern counterpublics, and the (re)creation of community or a fully functioning society.     

Community resilience for youth and families: Facilitative physical and social capital in contexts of adversity

Studies that focus on community-level factors associated with the resilience of youth and families reflect a shift in perspective from community deficits to the potential of communities to facilitate the mobilization of human and physical resources. Physical and social capital (both informal relationships and formal service provision) give communities the potential to recover from dramatic change, sustain their adaptability, and support new growth. This paper reviews key concepts such as these as they relate to how young people access informal supports and formal services that promote resilience. A discussion of the relevant research highlights the way protective processes function when children, youth and families are exposed to catastrophic human-made and natural events. Five principles are suggested to help promote community resilience. Implications for the design and implementation of interventions are discussed with a focus on making informal supports more available and formal services coordinated, continuous, co-located, negotiated, culturally relevant and effective.     

Networks of social capital: Extending a public relations model of civil society in Peru

Scholars have argued that public relations can and indeed must be used to improve society. This article builds on the work of Taylor and Doerfel (2005), who advocated for the continued study of civil society through the lens of public relations theory. This study contributes to a normative public relations model of civil society by examining how interorganizational relationships, which may initially be established for purposes of resource exchange, benefit civil society through the creation and maintenance of social capital. The study examined a segment of Peruvian civil society dedicated to media development, as media is a key partner in building civil society (Taylor, 2009). The results of the study help to explain how interorganizational relationships contribute to the creation of social capital in a civil society network, and how certain network positions are integral to maintaining the social capital of a community of actors. Implications for the role of public relations in building and maintaining networks of interorganizational communities are discussed.     

The rationality of social structure: Cooperation in social dilemmas through investments in and returns on social capital

We develop a game-theoretic model of how social structure in the sense of a network of relations between actors helps to mitigate social dilemmas. We simultaneously endogenize the network by modeling actors’ incentives to establish the network. Since the network of relations helps to mitigate social dilemmas, it constitutes social capital. We thus analyze investments in and returns on social capital in social dilemmas and characterize the value of social capital. Our model covers a class of social dilemma games including the Trust Game, the Investment Game, the Prisoner's Dilemma, the two-actor Public Goods Game, and others.     

Network social capital as an outcome of social movement mobilization: Using the position generator as an indicator of social network diversity

In the social mobility literature, the position generator (PG) has been used to examine the relationship between the structural location of individuals, and outcomes such as obtaining a high status job. Diversity of occupational ties (as measured by the PG) is also a significant predictor of an individual's cultural capital. A great deal of work has also been done in the field of social movements examining the relationship between networks and mobilization. However, only limited attention has been given to the position generator in this literature. Also, while past research has demonstrated that prior network ties to activists is one of the most important predictors of current activism, relatively little research has been devoted to examining network structure as an outcome of activism. The present paper builds upon these insights by utilizing data collected with the position generator on a sample of environmental movement members, and examining the relationship between individual activism (as an independent variable) and diversity of occupational ties (as a dependent variable). The result of key theoretical significance is that those who are more active in the environmental movement develop a greater diversity of occupational ties to other environmentalists. Results suggest that this process occurs over time. These findings provide evidence that social capital (as indicated by network diversity) is one outcome of social movement mobilization.     

Social capital and intimate partnership in later life: A gendered perspective on 60+ year-old Israelis

The gendered meaning of the repartnering process and the social capital mechanisms that facilitate it were examined by means of in-depth interviews with 32 Israelis 60 years and older. Two central themes emerged from the interviews. The first theme relates to the interviewees’ gendered perceptions of the change in their social capital between partnering relationships. The second theme concerns respondents’ recognition of the new partnership as social capital. These themes reflect the gendered dynamics in the use of social capital for repartnering in old age. The study also illustrates the complexity of ‘social capital’ as a concept and addresses its relevance for the elders’ well being.     

Micro-structure in micro-neighborhoods: A new social distance measure,and its effect on individual and aggregated perceptions of crime and disorder

This study links social network methodology with the social disorganization literature to test the effect of block-level social distance on neighborhood perceived crime and disorder. Employing a unique study design that allows creating matrices of social distance (based on demographic characteristics) between 11 residents on each of over 650 blocks at three time points, we find that more socially distant residents perceive more disorder than their neighbors. Consistent with the bridging social capital literature, overall social distance in the block has a curvilinear relationship with perceived crime. And blocks with two cohesive subgroups, based on social distance, have lower levels of perceived disorder.     

Social capital of entrepreneurs in a developing country: The effect of gender on access to and requests for resources

This paper addresses gender differences in the social capital of entrepreneurs in a developing country. Social networks are often an important asset for accessing resources; however, they may also be a liability in developing countries, since entrepreneurs are often expected to support their contacts. Using a recent survey among urban and rural Ugandan entrepreneurs, we focus on the financial resources that entrepreneurs can obtain from their contacts on the one hand, and requests for financial support made to the entrepreneurs from these contacts on the other hand. Our results show that there are gender differences associated with access to, and requests for, financial resources.