SOCIAL CAPITAL:

BENEFITS OF HUMAN SOCIABILITY

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We provide training, research and reporting, facilitation and presentation services in relation to social capital, particularly for organisations

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We offer online and in-person training opportunities. We have consulted with various organizations, academics and students to support social capital goals.

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Guide to Social Capital

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AN INTRIGUING INTEGRATION OF SOCIOLOGY & ECONOMICS

Social capital is fundamentally about how people interact with each other, how they work together, share, help, and collaborate. 

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SOCIAL CAPITAL & ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

The core of our business is working with organisations that would like to improve their social capital and organisational culture.

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Latest Articles

Social capital in the formation of local institutions and their contribution to territorial governance

December 14, 2020

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Why is social capital important?

How isn’t it? Social capital is entwined in so much of our lives without us being aware of it. However, the more we are aware of it’s importance, the more we are likely to see it’s benefits. 

Working together

Without social capital humans could not work together. This is because social capital is the shared values, norms, trust, and belonging that make social exchange possible.

Better leadership

An understanding of social capital improves leadership capabilities. It can support the improvement of organizational culture because it considers factors often overlooked.

It's capital

A lot of attention is paid to financial capital, human capital, natural capital etc. All forms of capital have benefits to an organization but some are often not given their due attention. Ignoring social capital can exacerbate issues within your organization.

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Social Capital Research

Social Capital Research
In this webinar, Professor Sandra Rosas discusses how social capital and collaborative networks contribute to improving the current situation (COVID-19 effects), the research provides information to strengthen the determinants of social capital in organizations and a review of various methodologies aimed at providing structure to collaborative networks. The webinar was on Friday January 7, 2022 and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by Social Capital Research https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ as part of the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialcapitalresearch and LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13975650/
Professor Sandra Rosas: Analysis of the determinants of social capital in organizations
YouTube Video UC6NOu8v0Oe8xaLn4UK9s36g_Pu4lsDC6H7c
In this webinar, Professor Joseph D. Lewandowski from the University of Central Missouri discusses how studies in social capital, as well as many NGO initiatives and related policy-driven government programs in the area of community development, often appeal to the causal power of participation in sport to generate the kinds of generalized trust, ties, and networks that make for more cohesive and prosperous communities and, indeed, more democratic societies. In fact, Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone (2001) takes as the centerpiece of its argument the notion that participation in bowling clubs in the United States contributed, in no small way, to the diversifying and strengthening of community and ‘making democracy work’ in America. In this way sport is often construed as a mechanism for the production of generalized trust and, more specifically, ‘bridging social capital’, among various ethnoracial and socioeconomic groups. With a focus on bowling and boxing, this webinar scrutinizes the ostensible ‘bridging’ functions of sport in an effort to make explicit the limits of what participation in sport can be expected to contribute to the development of cohesive but diverse communities and a democratic way of life. As an alternative account, it is argued that sport is best understood as a complex site of horizontal and vertical sociability. The extent to which the forms of sociability emergent in bowling alleys and boxing clubs are capitalized in ways that foster diverse communities and shared habits of democracy remains an open question. For participation in sport characteristically does not produce generalized trust and social capital but rather reproduces and reinforces the presence (or impoverishment) of such resources along ethnoracial and socioeconomic lines. Joseph D Lewandowski is an educator, researcher and author whose work focuses on sport, social capital, and inequality in the urban milieu. The former holder of the Fulbright-Masaryk Distinguished Chair in Social Studies (Czech Republic), Lewandowski currently serves as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Central Missouri (USA). He is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the Philosophy of Sport and a working group fellow at the Legatum Institute. Among his many publications in social capital theory, Lewandowski is the author of ‘Sport, Trust, and Social Capital’ (Comparative Sociology), co-editor of Trust and Transitions: Social Capital in a Changing World and, more recently, Urban Social Capital: Civil Society and City Life. His work has been published in German, Czech, and Polish, and appears in journals such as Theory, Culture, and Society, Journal of Poverty, Journal of Social Philosophy, Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and elsewhere. Lewandowski’s current book in the philosophy and sociology of sport, On Boxing: Critical Interventions in the Bittersweet Science (Routledge, 2022), explores the cultural and philosophical dimensions of professional pugilism, and includes an extended discussion of boxing and social capital. The webinar was on Friday December 17, 2021 and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by Social Capital Research https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ as part of the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialcapitalresearch and LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13975650/
Professor Joseph D. Lewandowski: Sport and Social Capital?
YouTube Video UC6NOu8v0Oe8xaLn4UK9s36g_UTNVzeF8LMA
One of the core questions that is being asked by family business leaders in today’s fast-paced and uncertain environment is: How do we develop and sustain entrepreneurial thinking and behaviors over time? While not unique to family businesses, the involvement of the family in business decisions and actions does create unique differences that should be considered when addressing entrepreneurial proclivities such as creativity, innovativeness, and proactiveness. This presentation is geared towards better understanding this issue of family entrepreneurship—the starting, growing, changing, and transforming of businesses involving family collectives—by examining it through the lens of social capital. Social capital is important—arguably, fundamental—to understanding both entrepreneurship and family-controlled enterprises, thus making it essential for understanding the challenges presented by our primary question about developing and sustaining entrepreneurship. Specifically, we will discuss how social networks can be utilized to develop and sustain entrepreneurship in family businesses by providing conduits for social capital in the form of information, knowledge, financial capital, and other resources. Practical examples are given that may help families and family business leaders foster an environment that builds and supports the pursuit of opportunities. These will also be used to highlight research opportunities in the field. The webinar was on Friday December 3, 2021 and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by Social Capital Research https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ as part of the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialcapitalresearch and LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13975650/
Professor G. Tyge Payne: Social Capital and Family Entrepreneurship
YouTube Video UC6NOu8v0Oe8xaLn4UK9s36g_Fj-9fLxOE3Y
Until the past half-century, all agriculture and land management was framed by local institutions strong in social capital. But neo-liberal forms of development came to undermine existing structures, thus reducing sustainability and equity. The past 20 years, though, have seen the deliberate establishment of more than eight million new social groups across the world. These groups focus on 1) integrated pest management; 2) forests; 3) land; 4) water; 5) pastures; 6) support services; 7) innovation platforms; 8) small-scale systems. We show across 122 initiatives in 55 countries that the number of groups has grown from 0.5M (at 2000) to 8.54M (2020). The area of land transformed by the 170-255M group members is 300 Mha, mostly in less-developed countries (98% groups; 94% area). Farmers and land managers working with scientists and extensionists in these groups have improved both environmental outcomes and agricultural productivity. In some cases, changes to national or regional policy supported this growth in groups. Together with other movements, these social groups could now support further transitions towards policies and behaviours for global sustainability and better health. Major challenges remain on the four interlocking modern crises arising from the ills of affluence: climate, biodiversity loss, inequality and the major non-communicable diseases. But dropping old habits is hard. There are paths, but many seem to lead into a dark forest. We have choices, and a good life might not cost the earth if it can build on collective action and form social capital. Jules Pretty is Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex, and Director of the Centre for Public and Policy Engagement. He is formerly Deputy Vice-Chancellor (2010-19). His sole-authored books include Sea Sagas of the North (forthcoming, 2022), Green Minds and a Good Life (forthcoming, 2022), The East Country (2017), The Edge of Extinction (2014), This Luminous Coast (2011, 2014), The Earth Only Endures (2007), Agri-Culture (2002) and Regenerating Agriculture (1995). He is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology and the Royal Society of Arts, former Deputy-Chair of the UK government’s Advisory Committee on Releases to the Environment, and has served on advisory committees for BBSRC and the Royal Society. He was presenter of the 1999 BBC Radio 4 series Ploughing Eden, a contributor and writer for the 2001 BBC TV Correspondent programme The Magic Bean, and a panellist in 2007 for Radio 4’s The Moral Maze. He received a 1997 award from the Indian Ecological Society, was appointed A D White Professor-at-Large by Cornell University from 2001, and is Chief & Founding Editor of the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. He received an OBE in 2006 for services to sustainable agriculture, an honorary degree from Ohio State University in 2009, and the British Science Association Presidential Medal (Agriculture and Food) in 2015. He is currently a trustee for WWF-UK, and was appointed President of Essex Wildlife Trust in 2019. This Luminous Coast was winner of New Angle Prize for Literature in 2013, and The East Country was winner of the East Anglian book of the year in 2018. He is among the top 1% most cited scientists in the world, and is co-host of the podcast Louder Than Words. Research bibliometrics: h-index 98, 59.6k citations (Google Scholar); h-index 53 (SciVal)) The webinar was on Friday November 26, 2021 and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by Social Capital Research https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ as part of the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialcapitalresearch and LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13975650/
Professor Jules Pretty: Social Capital and The Ills of Affluence
YouTube Video UC6NOu8v0Oe8xaLn4UK9s36g_0N9wn9u02us
The word “capital” originally referred to financial resources invested in the production of greater financial resources. It has been gradually extended to other kinds of resources. These have included the skills, training, and knowledge of individuals, social groups or political entities (human capital); cultural traits that lead to desirable outcomes (cultural capital); and qualities of sets of people that result in advantages either for the sets themselves or the individuals in them (the most common senses of “social capital”). What do these uses of “capital” have in common and what differentiates them? If one thinks of capital as any set of assets that can produce profitable outcomes, then it makes sense to talk about skills, training, or knowledge or about cultural values or forms of interpersonal relations as “capital.” Indeed, financial assets alone can only result in profits within cultural and interpersonal environments. But social capital clearly differs in a number of ways from financial capital. The latter comes in identifiable amounts. Although social scientists have proposed various ways of quantifying social capital, it does not come in obvious countable units, such as dollars or Euros. Authors often define what social capital is in varying ways, with some essentially considering it as synonymous with cultural capital or some particular cultural value (such as trust), while others define it in terms of interpersonal networks of control and support. A co-author and I have argued that one special problem in social capital theory is that the production of desirable outcomes from interpersonal relations or values is a matter of process, rather than a matter of the investment of countable assets. If social capital involves characteristics of social groups that result in profitable outcomes, when should we regard an outcome as profitable? This webinar will deal with the theoretical problems involved in thinking about social relations as investable assets and attempt to explore what social capital does and does not have in common with the tradition idea of financial capital. Carl L. Bankston III is professor of sociology at Tulane University. His most recent books include American Ideas of Equality: A Social History, 1750-2020 (Cambria, 2021), The Rise of the New Second Generation (with Min Zhou; Polity, 2016); and Immigrant Networks and Social Capital (Polity, 2014). His research interests include international migration, sociology of education, stratification, historical sociology, and sociology of religion. Social capital theory has consistently been a dominant theoretical framework across all of these areas. The webinar was on Friday November 19, 2021 and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by Social Capital Research https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ as part of the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialcapitalresearch and LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13975650/
Professor Carl L. Bankston III: In What Sense is Social Capital “Capital”?
YouTube Video UC6NOu8v0Oe8xaLn4UK9s36g_D4Xdc6buysA
The word “capital” originally referred to financial resources invested in the production of greater financial resources. It has been gradually extended to other kinds of resources. These have included the skills, training, and knowledge of individuals, social groups or political entities (human capital); cultural traits that lead to desirable outcomes (cultural capital); and qualities of sets of people that result in advantages either for the sets themselves or the individuals in them (the most common senses of “social capital”). What do these uses of “capital” have in common and what differentiates them? If one thinks of capital as any set of assets that can produce profitable outcomes, then it makes sense to talk about skills, training, or knowledge or about cultural values or forms of interpersonal relations as “capital.” Indeed, financial assets alone can only result in profits within cultural and interpersonal environments. But social capital clearly differs in a number of ways from financial capital. The latter comes in identifiable amounts. Although social scientists have proposed various ways of quantifying social capital, it does not come in obvious countable units, such as dollars or Euros. Authors often define what social capital is in varying ways, with some essentially considering it as synonymous with cultural capital or some particular cultural value (such as trust), while others define it in terms of interpersonal networks of control and support. A co-author and I have argued that one special problem in social capital theory is that the production of desirable outcomes from interpersonal relations or values is a matter of process, rather than a matter of the investment of countable assets. If social capital involves characteristics of social groups that result in profitable outcomes, when should we regard an outcome as profitable? This webinar will deal with the theoretical problems involved in thinking about social relations as investable assets and attempt to explore what social capital does and does not have in common with the tradition idea of financial capital. Carl L. Bankston III is professor of sociology at Tulane University. His most recent books include American Ideas of Equality: A Social History, 1750-2020 (Cambria, 2021), The Rise of the New Second Generation (with Min Zhou; Polity, 2016); and Immigrant Networks and Social Capital (Polity, 2014). His research interests include international migration, sociology of education, stratification, historical sociology, and sociology of religion. Social capital theory has consistently been a dominant theoretical framework across all of these areas. The webinar was on Friday November 19, 2021 and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by Social Capital Research https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ as part of the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialcapitalresearch and LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13975650/
Professor Carl L. Bankston III: In What Sense is Social Capital “Capital”?
YouTube Video UC6NOu8v0Oe8xaLn4UK9s36g_gQF1oqZZz7Q
Social capital is often considered as beneficial to mental health and has been targeted for community-based health promotion initiatives. However, recent evidence suggests that the relationship between social capital and mental health is more nuanced: social capital can be simultaneously beneficial and detrimental within communities. This presentation will first explore the current scientific knowledge on social capital, social capital interventions, and how they are approached in mental health promotion. It will draw from existing literature and examples from case studies to highlight the complexity of promoting social capital for mental health within specific communities, and how building social capital for some groups may have unintended consequences for others. Overall, it will question how social capital can contribute to and overcome mental health-related inequities, and will conclude by suggesting ways to improve current research and practice. Dr. Annahita (Anna) Ehsan is a social scientist who uses multiple and mixed-methods to understand social inequalities and health. She is particularly interested in how social relationships play a role in health promotion, and how community interventions both reduce and reproduce health inequalities. She works directly with existing interventions to improve monitoring and evaluation, and uses integrated knowledge transfer to benefit practice. The webinar was on Friday November 12, 2021 and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by Social Capital Research https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ as part of the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialcapitalresearch and LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13975650/
Dr Annahita Ehsan: Social Capital and Community Mental Health Promotion
YouTube Video UC6NOu8v0Oe8xaLn4UK9s36g_YHjrgAQwImo
In this webinar, Professor Troy Glover from the University of Waterloo gives a presentation that seeks to understand the conceptual pathways associated with endogenous and exogenous social capital at the micro level. Social capital can be endogenous insofar as it originates from within social networks or exogenous insofar as it derives from sources outside of immediate social networks. The endogenous pathway to social capital shows how tangible, more durable relationships produce social capital, while the exogenous pathway shows how social capital arises in fleeting experiences among members of an imagined community. In fleshing out these social processes, the presentation aims to provide greater conceptual rigor to our understanding of how social capital forms and how social capital facilitates action. The webinar was on Friday October 29, 2021 and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by Social Capital Research https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ as part of the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialcapitalresearch and LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13975650/
Professor Troy Glover: Exploring the Endogenous and Exogenous Pathways of Social Capital
YouTube Video UC6NOu8v0Oe8xaLn4UK9s36g_PKGoKzSpjSM
In this webinar, Dr Trent Engbers from the University of Southern Indiana will discuss putting the capital in social capital. Given the proliferation of research and interest in social capital over the past decades, it is easy to lose track that a fundamental aspect of social capital is “capital”. As the concept of social capital has evolved to include elements of civic participation, norms of trust and reciprocity, and shared community norms and values; it is easy to lose track that a defining element of social capital is that it is a form of capital that can be used to productive use. This webinar will seek to achieve two goals. First, it will examine the empirical and conceptual dynamics of “capital-centered” social capital research. Second, it will explain how theoretical understandings of social capital impact utilitarian ends. Special attention will be directed to how social capital contributes to economic enterprises and the complex role of social capital in economic development. Empirical research on social capital and economic development in a range of contexts will be discussed with a goal of informing management and public policy. The webinar was on Friday October 1, 2021 and was part of the regular webinar sessions held by Social Capital Research https://www.socialcapitalresearch.com/ as part of the Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/socialcapitalresearch and LinkedIn group https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13975650/
Dr Trent Engbers: Putting the Capital in Social Capital
YouTube Video UC6NOu8v0Oe8xaLn4UK9s36g_Lf4Jabxfel4
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Academic interest in social capital

Over the last three decades the concept of social capital has swept across the social sciences, into the physical sciences, and virtually every area of academic enquiry. It has been adopted outside of academia; in politics, business, and international development, to name a few. But some people have suggested that its popularity is in decline. The data, however, does not support this view.

This short video illustrates the rise of social capital in different fields using data from the Web of Science database. It shows how the number of publications on social capital has increased in each field over time.

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