Operationalizing the Social Capital of Organizations: Conceptual Framework and Empirical Testing

Abstract

Social capital in the modern sense can be described as the capacity for socially oriented management of organizations. As social capital serves this purpose, it needs to be measured using relevant sociological tools based on the principles of operationalizing it as a complex social concept and a resource of immaterial nature. The purpose of the article is to present the results of social capital operationalization problem study that were obtained during the empirical portion implemented within the framework of the socio-resource approach towards managing organizations. The data obtained as a result of a panel study in 2022 give grounds for concluding that the basic process of operationalizing social capital proposed by the author provides an opportunity to substantiate variables and correlations between them for subsequently measuring the development of certain components of social capital. The suggested approach also allows asserting that social capital operationalization largely allows for solving the problem of “measuring the immeasurable” which involves, based on evaluating the current state of an organization’s social capital, developing management decisions aimed at the effective formation and development of said human capital. The author offers practical recommendations for correcting managerial actions while taking into account the problematic aspects of social capital formation.

Keywords

• organization’s social capital
• structural component of social capital
• cognitive component of social capital
• relational component of social capital
• social capital operationalization
• social networks