A Relational Resource Perspective on Social Capital

Abstract

This chapter reviews the notion of social capital from a resource based perspective. We argue that the notion of social capital relies on a metaphorical mapping of features associated with economic notions of capital or assets into the social domain. We start from the notion that not all economic resources can be classified as assets in the way the term is deployed within legal and accounting language, and argue that social capital shares many features with other less understood and intangible resources. By employing a framework to examine the multifaceted and relational dimension of resources, we examine in detail the entailments of the social capital metaphor and relate to current applications within the business and management literature. We conclude by reflecting on the characteristics of social capital as an economic resource and caution against the dangers of engaging in facile prescriptions based on a cursory understanding of the logic of accumulation and use of social capital.