I work with him. We do our job, and I go home at 5 o’clock. I don’t have to like him!
A few weeks ago I was at a birthday party and I tried to explain to my dinner partner what it is that I do for a living. I told her that I do mini inquiries into social capital in organizations. I interview and observe people, try to determine the state of their relationships, stress problematic areas of communication, and then make recommendations to our software designer. Then we work together to figure out good solutions, and thereby implementing the findings of the inquiries in the design of the software. Or at least that has been the desired process so far, I told her.
The word social capital seemed to stir something in her though. She suddenly looked almost upset and when I finished my rant she asked me “all that talk about relations - do we have to like each other at work in order to be productive, effective, innovative?”. I couldn’t quite figure out what made her upset, but the question I think was meant rhetorically (hence the quote of the beginning of this post). I seriously did not know what to answer her.
Later on I figured maybe her reaction was due to the lack of consistency and content when we talk about relations. We talk a lot about the social web, and how it creates relations, and how those relations create value (although ‘value’ is a very disputed word), but who talks of the nature of relations? Of what they consists of? And what they have to consist of in order to create value?
My colleague Thomas provided me with a brilliant link to a piece discussing the measurement of social capital. At first I was a bit skeptic because the author - who are the authors by the way? Who are behind gnudung.com? - keeps stressing the search for hard data to measure in the growing body of social capital theory. I was thinking to myself that maybe you’re asking the wrong questions if you persist on looking for hard data to answer your questions. Maybe you shouldn’t look for the amount of social capital, maybe you ought to look at the meaning of social capital…the meaning of trust, the meaning of reciprocity - what does those factors mean for a social network for instance over time? Later on I started to get down right disillusioned as the piece kept going on about quantitative methods and the hardship of measuring social capital quantitatively.
Well I know it’s all a matter of your perspective on scientific method, and my initial skepticism when reading the piece quickly vanished as I was once again soothed and reminded that Ideally, measures of social capital should be thouroughly based on, and tied to, the conceptual framework for the specific study. Basicly that means that the questions you ask has to guide your choice of method. I couldn’t agree more. Thanks, Thomas for the reference.
When searching for literature on tools and methods for measuring social capital I found a useful article called Measurement of Social Capital(a cup cake to the one who guesses my search words). In part 2 of the article a whole list of specific tools for gathering data about networks. And in part 3 quantitative and qualitative methods are discussed. As I’m trying to make a list of tools (and ressources eventually) on the rather dusty wiki and at the same time writing a working paper on the measurement of social capital, I would very much like to hear if anybody knows of any good overview articles on methods and tools regarding social capital?
I don’t know much about the study itself, but it sure looks interesting. A group of researchers at the University of Nevada are doing a survey investigating blogs’ effect on trust and social interactions. How ever it would be even more interesting if they provided a bit of information about context etc. But do go and check it out!
Furthermore you can get af copy of a report on a previous study of social capital by emailing reza.vaezi@yahoo.com
Months ago my boss asked the simple question, whether social capital can be measured or not? I’m pretty sure my initial thought was ‘no’ and then ‘maybe, it depends on what you mean by measuring?’
My thought was that you would never be able to measure social capital exactly the same way as you would measure for instance physical capital; by numbers or by size of amount. Let’s talk about trust. If social capital consists of the amount of trust (and reciprocity etc.) we have to ask how trust is measured? By numbers? If that’s so I would have to ask what is behind those numbers? The number of times somebody has expressed or acted an act of trust? But then I’ve to ask again, how do the researcher know what constitutes trust for the actors?
My suggestion would be to ‘measure’ how trust is experienced by the actors? Which means that if we are to measure social capital we have to put up an alternative to the way mesurement is done at the moment. And that’s probably not done very easily as it would be the same as questioning western epistomology, the basis on which modern science, western culture create knowledge; by way of numbers. Numbers make a strong argument. We believe in quantity!
A few weeks ago I came across (or my boss did. Thanks) Dean Spitzer’s presentation. In it he argues for a new way of perceiving measurement (of performance). It’s a great inspiration as my work continues. *
* More Spitzer
As I’m writing a whitepaper on social capital, social software, and methods (more to come later) I would like to point to Dmitri Williams, a scholar of Internet studies, especially game studies.
In his article from 2006 he calls for a rethinking of methods when it comes to the study of social capital in online settings as opposed to studies in off-line situations. He argues that the only question Internet studies (aimed at studying impact on relationships) have adressed so far is the question of how the Internet may affect off-line relationships instead of asking about the nature of relationships online.
He’s got a good point there, and I’m eager to investigate his suggested method, Internet Social Capital Scales, which he thinks will encompass the study of both bridging and bonding social capital online as well as off-line.
Christmas is dawning upon us. For social scientists, marketeers, designers, and alike it is almost christmas every day these days. Social network sites (SNS) provide an overwhelming overload of data. It seems that Santa has never been more generous.
Nicole B. Ellison (et.al) has studied “The benefits of Facebook” extensively, and she finds that SNS has a positive effect on the accumulation of social capital, especially when it comes to the kind of social capital referred to as bridging. Furthermore Ellison concludes that SNS help people maintain relationships in opposition to earlier studies of the Internet which usually ended up concluding that the Internet isolates people. At the same time SNS provide possibilities for the future for instance in terms of job opportunities, knowledge and information sharing.
For those of us who already know that SNS (and social software in general) can have a positive effect on the accumulation of social capital Ellison’s conclusion does not come as a surprise. However one thing is what we know another is providing substantial evidence.
Assertions:
- I assert that social capital is a productive force, meaning that trust, norms of behaviour, obligations, and reciprocity will influence effectiveness, abilitity to innovate, develop, and thrive, as well as loyalty amongst co-workers
- I assert a social perspective on the notion of social capital. Thus I believe that the production of social capital depends on context. This means that a. some people in a network are better at generating trust and reciprocity, and thereby better at playing the game*. b. Content, meaning, and lived praxis of factors such as trust, norms of behaviour, obligations, and reciprocity will vary according to context
- I assert that social capital is accumulative
- I assert that social capital is embedded in the structure of relations in a network, and not the possession of individuals
- I assert that the accumulation of social capital is for the benefit of the collective
- I assert that social capital has to be studied empirically
- I assert the proliferation of a methodology that seeks to understand the quality of relations and put focus on the dynamics of everyday practice in an organization
* Bourdieu (1979) would say that how well you play the game depend on the volume of both economic, cultural, symbolic, and social capital available to you.