Social capital and public goods

Previous literature suggests positive relationships between social capital, pro-social behavior and subsequent economic development. We analyze the relationship between social networks and trust (two measures of social capital) and self-reported charitable contributions of time and/or money (pro-social behavior) using data collected from two ethnically distinct, low-income neighborhoods. We find that large social networks are positively related to charitable contributions, but that the effects of trust are less robust. We also find that social networks that are more geographically dispersed tend to be larger. Our results indicate that the social capital in a neighborhood is more important than ethnicity, ethnic diversity, or other demographic information in understanding public goods contributions.     

Social capital and lifelong learning

Social capital and lifelong learning have each been centralto government policy concerns in Britain and both have beencentrally relevant to policy debates on regeneration, and developmentmore broadly. There have been widespread assumptions about theconnections between     

Social capital, social inclusion and services for people with learning disabilities

Both social capital and social inclusion have emerged as significant concepts for human services in the last decade and yet their inter-relationship remains largely unexplored. This article argues that, whilst they are similar in their vision for a healthy society, they adopt sufficiently different perspectives to stimulate and challenge each other. This can be well illustrated by reference to services for people with a learning disability. Commissioners and providers of learning disability services are encouraged through this article to harness both concepts in order to assist in the process of modernizing services and increasing life opportunities for the people they support. It is argued that it is not possible to understand the full consequences of adopting either theoretical position without an adequate understanding of the other. Examples are given of the implications of this for advocacy services, day opportunities, rural communities, transition and staff training.     

Social capital, networks and leisure consumption

This article reflects on the way in which personal ties affect the nature and content of consumption. While it is banal to observe that friends, kin, colleagues and neighbours influence anyone's pattern of consumption, comparatively little work exists on how this process operates. The article will be illustrated by some secondary analysis of the British Household Panel Survey which has a panel of approximately 10,000 people who have been interviewed annually since 1991. It analyses aspects of individual consumption in relation to people's associational involvement and friendship ties. The data is explored in the context of debates about social capital, attempting to apply the concept in order to analyse recreational practices. It is suggested that social capital is a flawed concept and that greater appreciation of the complexity and diversity of network ties is required to understand how personal connections influence consumption.     

Social capital, the social economy and community development

Social capital is increasingly used in the field of communitydevelopment and the social economy. This article describes someof the results to emerge from a three-year research project(CONSCISE Project), which looked at the contribution socialcapital can make to the social economy within local economicdevelopment. Following the definition of social capital, thearticle examines how it can be assessed and then goes on tolist the main findings on the significance of social capitalin the understanding of the social economy and community development.It concludes with a number of policy implications on how socialcapital can be used within the context of community development.     

Social capital,human capital,and career success in public relations in Taiwan

This study examined the degree to which demographic, human capital, and social capital variables can predict career success for public relations practitioners in Taiwan. Social capital includes two dimensions: social trust and social network. Human capital includes education, rank, career tenure, and motivation. Public relations practitioners (150) from 16 agencies in Taiwan were interviewed in 2006. Social capital explained the significant variance in subjective career success. As for human capital, motivation negatively predicted job comfort, but positively predicted challenge and task significance. Career tenure and rank in the agency positively predicted autonomy, while only age and professional tenure predicted objective success. This study also revealed that the longer the practitioners stay in the business, the more the sense of autonomy, financial rewards, and support they have. Combined with the results of objective career success, career tenure is the best predictor for career success among all the variables in human capital. Since gender does not predict career success, we may infer that public relations practice in Taiwan does not seem hostile to women.     

Social order,cultural capital and citizenship*

The question of whether education should be seen as an instrument of social order is an old topic in the social sciences. There exist several theories concerning this question. Two of these rival theories are dealt with in this paper. On the basis of each, historical data have been looked at anew and empirical research has been carried out into the prevailing conditions in the Netherlands. On the basis of the first theory, which was inspired by Bourdieu and which concerns economic, cultural (including educational) and social capital, data on the Dutch history between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries have been reanalysed with respect to the attitude of the diverse sections of the dominant class towards culture in general and the university in particular. Dutch history can be regarded as a national variant of the universal tensions between ‘culture’and ‘knowledge’and between ‘culture’and ‘economics’in human societies. On the basis of Bourdieu's theory it is assumed that under the prevailing social conditions elementary schools will differ in ‘educational status’in the schools market. Empirical investigation confirms this hypothesis. The ‘educational status’of elementary schools mediates (reproduces) almost all of the influence of the childrens’social background on their school career, and reinforces this influence. On the basis of the second theory, which is based on the work of Meyer, Boli and Ramirez, data on the Dutch history in the Enlightenment period have been reanalysed with respect to the rise of mass education. These historical data give substantial evidence to the theory that the construction of the nation-state is of decisive importance for the rise of mass education. Our empirical investigation, however, does not confirm the hypothesis that in the actual situation elementary schools differ in ‘comprehensiveness’. Neither schools nor parents are oriented towards integration. Rather, the contrasts seem to be getting sharper in the 1980s and the schools as well as the social classes seem to be distancing themselves further from each other. Various sections of the dominant class are busy strengthening their position of power in education. In short, the use of schools to constitute citizens does not lessen the pressure towards differentiation. Thus, the theory of Boli and Ramirez explains the rise of mass education, but cannot explain its social class bound form, a fact that can be explained very well by Bourdieu's theory. Therefore the theories of both Bourdieu and Boli and Ramirez should be regarded not as rivalizing, but as complementary.     

Social capital contested

The purpose in this paper is to specify certain basic ways of conceptualising social capital (SC) in order to bring out the contested character of it. The paper starts by touching on the origins of the concept. This is followed by a critical overview of the views of P. Bourdieu, J.S. Coleman, A. Portes and R. Putnam, and an attempt is made to show the fragmentation of the different approaches, which in itself creates difficulties for the meaningful utilisation of SC in social-scientific research. The adoption of the SC concept by international organisations and national governments has fanned, it is claimed, its ideological use. If the notion of SC is to be salvaged, because there is something useful to it, it is therefore necessary to overcome the evident confusion and fragmentation.     

Social capital and psychological distress

The author proposes a conceptual model to explain the diverse roles of social capital--resources embedded in social networks--in the social production of health. Using a unique national U.S. sample, the author estimated a path analysis model to examine the direct and indirect effects of social capital on psychological distress and its intervening effects on the relationships between other structural antecedents and psychological distress. The results show that social capital is inversely associated with psychological distress, and part of that effect is indirect through subjective social status. Social capital also acts as an intervening mechanism to link seven social factors (age, gender, race-ethnicity, education, occupational prestige, annual family income, and voluntary participation) with psychological distress. This study develops the theory of social capital as network resources and demonstrates the complex functions of social capital as a distinct social determinant of health.     

Social capital and child welfare

Social and economic inequalities have risen steeply in the UK over the past 20 years. Children and their families have been particularly disadvantaged by this creeping impoverishment, which is associated with negative effects on parenting capacity and developmental outcomes for children. The social capital of communities, which consists of the cultural resources and inter‐personal relationships between members, is also eroded by inequality and social exclusion. Evidence is presented that demonstrates the way in which children's welfare and family functioning are crucially dependent upon the social support available within local communities. It is argued that building social capital in poor communities is a more effective way of promoting children's welfare than the present emphasis on formal child protection and family support services and efforts to increase parenting skills and responsibilities. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social capital and nonprofit leaders

The concept of social capital seems to be a very compatible, useful, and important one for nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits must sustain and enhance the original social capital with which they were formed and broaden it into a variety of key areas. Nonprofits and their leaders must foster social capital in order to recruit and develop board members, raise philanthropic support, develop strategic partnerships, engage in advocacy, enhance community relations, and create a shared strategic vision and mission within the organization and its employees. Nonprofit executives have a pivotal role in carrying out these functions, but they do so through relationships and networks with others. These activities are time‐consuming and demanding, and they require planning. This article provides a focused literature analysis on the concept of social capital as it applies to nonprofit management and leadership. The author views the literature with respect to definitions of social capital and the way nonprofits generate and mobilize social capital in order to achieve organizational goals. The author also cites methods for measuring social capital.     

Social network capital, economic mobility and poverty traps

This paper explores the role social network capital might play in facilitating poor agents?? escape from poverty traps. We model and simulate endogenous link formation among households heterogeneously endowed with both traditional and social network capital who make investment and technology choices over time in the absence of financial markets and faced with multiple production technologies featuring different fixed costs and returns. We show that social network capital can either complement or substitute for productive assets in facilitating some poor households?? escape from poverty. However, the voluntary nature of costly link formation also creates exclusionary mechanisms that impede some poor households?? use of social network capital. Through numerical simulation, we show that the ameliorative potential of social networks therefore depends fundamentally on the broader socio-economic wealth distribution in the economy, which determines the feasibility of social interactions and the net intertemporal benefits resulting from endogenous network formation. In some settings, targeted public transfers to the poor can crowd-in private resources by inducing new social links that the poor can exploit to escape from poverty.     

Social capital and the added value of social relations

Almost all empirical research reveals that social capital is a factor that enhances public goods, but scholars are divided into two strands of thought. According to the first strand, the enhancement of public goods does not need any network of social relations, while, according to the second, enhancement depends on the existence and good functioning of relational networks, to the point that it consists in the creation of social networks. Which one is right? In order to clarify the issue, one should ask: can a social relation have any added social value? If so, how can we conceive of the added social value of social relations, and how can we measure it? The author claims that the added social value of social relations can be observed in those processes through which social capital and public (relational) goods (re)generate or elide each other. These processes can be analyzed as morphogenetic cycles that work in temporal sequences and are not circular or recursive. By adopting this perspective, we can see and measure the added social value of social relations in primary and secondary networks, leading to the emergence of public goods. The relational approach can give abundant evidence as to how and why different public goods are produced and/or enhanced depending on the different added social value of the social relations that constitute them.     

社会资本与家族企业的发展

改革开放以来,我国家族企业迅速崛起。此现象按新古典经济学的理论无法解释,因为一般家族企业在创立之初,既缺少物质资本,又缺少人力资本,也没有多高的技术水平,甚至连存在的合法性都成问题。其实,企业的经济增长不仅需要有形的物质资本和人力资本,还需要无形的社会资本。家族企业之所以能在夹缝中异军突起,很大程度上依靠深厚的社会资本。但随着家族企业的进一步发展,如果社会资本不能因企业和社会发展而重新建构,就可能成为其进一步发展的障碍,社会资本的转型又成为其生命延续的关键。社会资本的内涵社会资本是20世纪80年代以来在西方社会…     

Social capital,guanxi and political influence in Chinese government relations

Social capital has emerged as a promising theoretical approach to understanding political influence in the public relations literature. However, the rationale of using social capital to influence corporate government relations in authoritarian societies is indistinct. To remedy this, we integrate Bourdieu’s (1986) and Lin’s (2001) social capital theories to explore how applying a variant form of social capital (e.g., guanxi) might shape corporate government relations in authoritarian China. A multi-method, qualitative approach was employed involving 44 interviews, participant observation and document review. The findings highlighted an underexamined “vertical” dimension of social capital (i.e., links with authority in a hierarchy), which enables corporations to exercise agency over the pre-existing and often vague regulatory environment. This study adds a new perspective to social capital with hierarchical guanxi that enriches our understanding of guanxi-based political influence in Chinese corporate government relations.     

Social capital and household income distributions in the United States: 1980, 1990

This paper asked if changes in social capital influence the level and disparity of household income in the United States. Social capital is defined in this paper as one's sympathy (antipathy) for others and one's idealized self. Changes in social capital are expected to produce the following economic consequences. First, increases in social capital are expected to alter the terms of trade and to increase the likelihood of trades between friends and family. Second, increases in social capital are expected to increase an economic agent's concerns for the external consequences of his or her choices, internalizing what otherwise would be considered externalities. Third, increases in social capital between firms are expected to increase the likelihood that they will act in their collective interest. Fourth, increases in social capital are expected to increase the opportunities for specialization and the likelihood of trade. Finally, increases in social capital are expected to raise the average level of income and reduce the disparity of income.This paper empirically tested the relationship between changes in social capital indicator variables and changes in the average and coefficient of variation (CVs) of household income. State CVs and averages of household income were calculated for all 50 states and for different races/ethnic groups using the U.S. Census data for 1980 and 1990. Social capital indicator variables selected to measure changes in social capital included measures of family integrity including the percentages of households headed by a single female with children; educational achievement variables including high school graduation rates; crime rate variables including litigation rates; and labor force participation rates. The social capital indicator variables appeared to be significantly correlated with each other. However, in 1980, the percentages of households headed by a single female with children was not significantly related to the birth rates of single teens. By 1990, however, a strong correlation was found between the percentages of households headed by a single female with children and the birth rate of single teens.Income inequality among U.S. households measured using CVs increased between 1980 and 1990 in all 50 states. The largest increase in CVs was among white households. The smallest increase in CVs was among Asian households. The states with the largest increase in the ratio of 1990 and 1980 CVs were Arizona, Wyoming, Maine, Vermont, and Texas. Half of the states reported decreases in real household income between 1980 and 1990. Those states with the largest percentage decrease in real income were Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Louisiana, and West Virginia. The largest percentage increase in real income was reported by Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.State CVs and averages of household income were regressed on four factors or subsets of social capital indicator variables. The four factors used to predict CVs and averages of household income were generally statistically significant. The findings of this report support the conclusion that changes in social capital have a significant effect on the disparity and level of household income.     

Social capital and the reproduction of economic inequality in polarized societies

This paper explores the idea that the distribution of wealth across social groups fundamentally affects the evolution of economic inequality. By providing microfoundations suitable for this exploration, this paper hopes to enhance our understanding of when social forces contribute to the reproduction of economic inequality. In tackling this issue, this paper offers contributions in two domains. First, it models social capital as a real capital asset with direct use and collateral values. Second, it extends the concepts of identity, alienation and polarization originally advanced by Esteban and Ray (Esteban, J.M. and Ray, D.: On the measurement of polarization, Econometrica 62(4) (1994), 819–851). This generalization permits us to consider the multiple characteristics that shape social identity, inclusion and exclusion. It also underwrites a higher-order measure of socio-economic polarization that permits us to explore the hypothesis that economic inequality is most pernicious and persistent when it is socially embedded. Holding constant the initial levels of economic polarization and wealth inequality, we show that higher socio-economic polarization increases subsequent income and wealth inequality. Far from being a distributionally neutral panacea for missing markets, social capital in this model may itself generate exclusion and deepen existing economic cleavages.     

Social mobility and social capital in contemporary Britain

This paper seeks to contribute to social capital research by linking measures of formal and informal forms of social capital to social mobility trajectories and assessing their impact on social trust. Drawing on data from a recent national survey – Cultural Capital and Social Exclusion (2003/2004 ) – we analyse formal civic engagement and informal social connections. The latter data are obtained using, for the first time in a study in Britain, Lin's (2001 ) 'Position Generator' approach as a means to identify the volume, range and position of individuals' informal social contacts. The pattern of contacts suggests that access to social ties is strongly conditioned by mobility trajectory. We also show that civic engagement in formal associations is especially high among second-generation members of the service class. It is also shown that both class trajectory and possession of two types of social capital have significant impacts on trust. Among the social groups disadvantaged in terms of bridging social ties are not only those in lower classes but also women and members of minority ethnic groups.     

Social capital and leaving the nest: Channels and housing tenures

Young adults in Europe sometimes have trouble moving away from their parents and obtaining a home of their own, which is considered an important step in the transition to adulthood. This paper investigates whether nest-leaving is affected by individual social capital and parental economic capital. The paper also examines how these resources are related to the type of housing tenure obtained and whether the housing was acquired through informal channels. In addition, the paper assesses whether differences in access and returns to social capital can explain the later nest-leaving of the children of immigrants. The study uses a Swedish two-wave panel survey of young adults aged between 19 and 22. Individual social capital is operationalized as an extensive social network measured with the position generator, while parental economic capital is estimated with registered disposable income. The results show that individual social capital is positively related to prospective nest-leaving, but parental income is not. Nevertheless, both individual social capital and parental economic capital are related to the obtained housing tenure type: social capital is linked to informal ‘second-hand’ rental agreements often acquired through contacts, whereas having high-income parents is linked to obtaining owned housing tenure. The children of immigrants are found to be more likely to live with their parents, but this is not explained by lower access or return to social capital.