Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Intellectual Capital

Kent Rondeau and Terry Wagar
planned change programs may have a deleterious effect on accumulations <strong>of</strong> workplace social
capital. Planned organizational change and development activities will undermine employee social
capital accumulations when <strong>the</strong> change programs being introduced cause employee bonds and
relationships to be severed or act to perturb or shrink <strong>the</strong> employee social networks in which social
capital is accumulated. In order to understand how planned organizational change programs may
serve to impact employee workplace social capital accumulations, it is useful to examine <strong>the</strong> complex
(and contentious) notion <strong>of</strong> workplace social capital.
1.1 Social capital in <strong>the</strong> workplace
The concept <strong>of</strong> social capital is an important concept for understanding relationships in social
networks (Bartkus & Davis, 2009). Although not without controversy in its purported usefulness as a
<strong>the</strong>oretical idea or certainty in its definition, social capital remains a salient notion in social science
research. Skeptics have characterized <strong>the</strong> concept <strong>of</strong> social capital as an overly “elastic term” (Lappe
& DuBois, 1997: 119), and a notion with an uncomfortably low level <strong>of</strong> certainty in its meaning. Yet
social capital, as defined by its principal <strong>the</strong>orists (Bourdieu, 1986; Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 1993),
comprises an array <strong>of</strong> features associated with social organization, including <strong>the</strong> number and
magnitude <strong>of</strong> interpersonal networks, high levels <strong>of</strong> interpersonal trust, and workplace norms <strong>of</strong>
reciprocity, extra-role behaviours, and mutual assistance. Toge<strong>the</strong>r, <strong>the</strong>se forms act as resources for
organizational participants to facilitate collective action (Ostrom & Ahn, 2003).
The large number <strong>of</strong> complementary and competing definitions <strong>of</strong> social capital is dramatically
demonstrated when we examine its many formulations that have been advanced in <strong>the</strong> scholarly
literature. This diversity in its conceptual meaning creates real challenges in how it is operationalized
and an even greater difficulty in how social capital is empirically assessed. Social capital has been
characterized as being embedded in social structure. According to Adler and Kwon (2002: 18), social
structure is reflected in three types <strong>of</strong> relations: a) market relations in which products and services are
exchanged for money or are bartered; b) hierarchical relations in which obedience to authority is
exchanged for material, spiritual and psychological security, and c) social relations in which favours
and gifts are exchanged. Within social organization, especially public-sector organizations, <strong>the</strong> latter
two forms <strong>of</strong> social structure are most predominant.
Social capital’s sources lie in <strong>the</strong> social structures within which an organizational member is located.
Social capital accumulations produce benefits that are available to both <strong>the</strong> individual (embedded in
<strong>the</strong> social network) as well as <strong>the</strong> network as a whole. Most definitions <strong>of</strong> social capital vary
depending on whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong>y focus on <strong>the</strong> sources, <strong>the</strong> substance, or <strong>the</strong> effects. Definitions can also
vary depending upon whe<strong>the</strong>r <strong>the</strong> focus in on a) <strong>the</strong> relations an organizational member maintains
with o<strong>the</strong>r members, 2) <strong>the</strong> structure <strong>of</strong> relations among members <strong>of</strong> a collectivity, network or
community-<strong>of</strong>-practice, or 3) both types <strong>of</strong> linkages.
Investments in social capital <strong>of</strong>ten generate individual-level or personal social capital when <strong>the</strong>
benefits <strong>of</strong> being part <strong>of</strong> a social network are able to be harvested by <strong>the</strong> individual member. A second
level <strong>of</strong> social capital is bonding social capital which is communally available within a defined social
network. As Putnam (2000: 22) argues “bonding social capital is good for undergirding specific
reciprocity and mobilizing solidarity within important proximate groups to which an individual belongs.”
Fur<strong>the</strong>rmore, Putnam (1995: 67) argues that this form <strong>of</strong> social capital “features social organization
such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitates coordination and cooperation for mutual
benefit.” Bridging social capital is characterized by Putnam (1995; 2000) as social capital that is more
inclusive <strong>of</strong> people across social distinctions. As Knoke (1999: 18) suggests it is this form <strong>of</strong> social
capital that defines “<strong>the</strong> process by which social actors create and mobilize <strong>the</strong>ir network connections
within and between organizations to gain access to o<strong>the</strong>r social actors’ resources.” When
summarizing <strong>the</strong> difference in <strong>the</strong>se two forms <strong>of</strong> social capital, Putnam (2000: 23) argues that
bridging social capital has <strong>the</strong> potential to “generate broader identities and reciprocity, whereas
bonding social capital bolsters our narrower selves.”
The past decade has witnessed a veritable explosion in social capital research (see Barkus & Davis,
2009; Ostrom & Ahn, 2003; Westlund, 2006). Social capital is proving to be an important concept
when explaining people’s relative success in and across organizations. Social capital has been shown
to be involved in a large number <strong>of</strong> organizational successes that are shared by employees. For
instance, social capital influences career success (Gabbay & Zuckerman, 1998), assists employees to
locate and secure employment (Lin and Dumin, 1996) and stay longer on <strong>the</strong> job (Krackhardt &
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