Social Capital - Explained
What is Social Capital?
Written by J. Mance Gordon
Updated at April 22nd, 2024
- Marketing, Advertising, Sales & PR
- Accounting, Taxation, and Reporting
- Professionalism & Career Development
-
Law, Transactions, & Risk Management
Government, Legal System, Administrative Law, & Constitutional Law Legal Disputes - Civil & Criminal Law Agency Law HR, Employment, Labor, & Discrimination Business Entities, Corporate Governance & Ownership Business Transactions, Antitrust, & Securities Law Real Estate, Personal, & Intellectual Property Commercial Law: Contract, Payments, Security Interests, & Bankruptcy Consumer Protection Insurance & Risk Management Immigration Law Environmental Protection Law Inheritance, Estates, and Trusts
- Business Management & Operations
- Economics, Finance, & Analytics
What is Social Capital?
Social Capital concerns the value that an individual (organization or person) receives as a result of their social relationships and connections.
What are the Elements of Social Capital?
Key components of social capital are:
- Trust
- Level of cohesion
- A sense of community and belonging
- Unrestricted and participative communication
- Democratic decision making
- Sense of collective responsibility
What are the Foundations of Social Capital?
The foundations of Social Capital include:
- Embeddedness: economic action and value is embedded in social relationships and cannot be explained adequately by considering individual actors separately.
- Appropriability: social connections of a particular type can be used for different purposes, including for those they were originally not intended (i.e. using a relation with a friend to help with finding a job or exploring a business opportunity).
- Reciprocity: actors do something for you because they are hoping or confident that the favor will be returned by you or even by someone else.