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The literature on social capital is vast and now includes tens of thousands of articles and books. There is incredible diversity of definitions, conceptual approaches, and areas of application. This category explores this diverse literature.
Export Reference Download PDF Print Shared narratives are commonly mentioned as elements of the cognitive dimension of social capital. The other dimensions of social capital being the structural and relational dimensions. This conceptualisation, distinguishing between structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions, is one of the major approaches to social capital. This approach was systematically explored and […]
Export Reference Download PDF Print Shared goals and shared purpose are commonly mentioned as elements of the cognitive dimension of social capital. The other dimensions of social capital being the structural and relational dimensions. This conceptualisation, distinguishing between structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions, is one of the major approaches to social capital. This approach was […]
Export Reference Download PDF Print Shared language is commonly mentioned as one of the elements of the cognitive dimension of social capital. The other dimensions of social capital being the structural and relational dimensions. This conceptualisation, distinguishing between structural, relational, and cognitive dimensions, is one of the major approaches to social capital. This approach was […]
Export Reference Download PDF Print Social capital has been criticised for being incredibly broad and potentially related to everything, a kind of catch-all. It is often treated differently in different contexts and at different levels of analysis. Some authors treat social capital as a private good, some as a public good, and others as having […]
In 2004 I wrote an article about the definitions of social capital and included a table of definitions from Adler & Kwon (2002). The article is still one of the most popular online, which is evidence that definition continues to be a challenging area for newcomers to social capital. Now, 15 years later, I was […]
Export Reference Download PDF Print Much of the literature on social capital poorly distinguishes its source from its form and consequences. It can be very difficult to make these distinctions since many social phenomena involve complex interrelationships with complicated cyclic, relational, and mutual causality. This article discusses a wide range of sources of social capital, […]
Export Reference Download PDF Print Discussing criticisms allows us to focus our attention on the potential weaknesses of the concept & our application of it. Social capital has been perceived as a miracle concept that is able to provide answers to a range of phenomena beyond an economic lens. Its rapid and wide application has […]
One of the key questions about social capital is where or at what level of society it resides. Does it reside with the individual like human capital? Or is it a property of society more generally? Or in fact, is it both the property of individuals and of society? The question of whether social capital […]
The distinction between structural, cognitive, and relational social capital was made by Janine Nahapiet and Sumantra Ghoshal and forms the most widely used and accepted framework for understanding social capital. These dimensions are conceptual distinctions that are useful for analytic convenience but in practice social capital involves complex interrelations between the three dimensions. Level of […]
Relational social capital is a dimension of social capital that relates to the characteristics and qualities of personal relationships such as trust, obligations, respect and even friendship. The key aspects of the relational dimension of social capital are trust and trustworthiness, norms and sanctions, obligations and expectations, and identity and identification. Relational social capital is […]