Rethinking Social Capital Measurement

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Author(s): Laurence Saglietto (Université Côte d'Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France), Delphine David (University of Paris 13 Sorbonne Paris Cité, France)and Cécile Cezanne (University Paris 13 Sorbonne Paris Cité, France)
Copyright: 2017
Pages: 21
Source title: Tools and Techniques for Economic Decision Analysis
Source Author(s)/Editor(s): Jelena Stanković (University of Niš, Serbia), Pavlos Delias (Eastern Macedonia and Thrace Institute of Technology, Greece), Srđan Marinković (University of Niš, Serbia)and Sylvie Rochhia (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, GREDEG, France)
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-0959-2.ch012

Keywords: Business & Management / Business Science Reference / Decision Support Systems / Economics and Economic Theory

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Abstract

Social capital is decisive to many of strategic objectives of organizations. Although it has been extensively defined in the literature, social capital continues to be discussed in particular concerning its measurement. What is the usability of the existing indicators of social capital? How do managers decide which one they would prefer? An overview of the literature reveals that there are very few measurements of social capital and those which have already developed are very complex. Direct measurements appear to provide a better understanding of the complexity of relationships than aggregated measurements. Yet, we show that they are of unsatisfactory quality. Using simple counter-examples, we advance that they give rise to contradictions. From this discussion and using Graph Theory, we propose two complementary indicators of social capital which we call “relational strength” and “relational potential”. These operational indicators can be handled by any actors to position themselves within their social sphere.

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