Transcript SOC 8311 Basic Social Statistics

SOCIAL CAPITAL
Social Capital Resources accruing to an ego actor
through direct & indirect relations with its alters that facilitate
ego’s attainment of its expressive or instrumental goals
Social liabilities The “dark side” of social capital: constraints
or obligations that hinder actions and goal attainment
- Ties to an inept team leader block her subordinate’s promotion
- Obligations to visit in-laws thwart your plans to see the Big Game
Diverse conceptualizations of social capital:
“inheres in the structure of relations between persons and
among persons” (Coleman 1990:302).
 “at once the resources contacts hold and the structure of
contacts in the network” (Burt 1992:12)
 “corporate social capital” (CSC) of firms and their
members (Leenders & Gabbay 1999:10)
The STRENGTH of WEAK TIES
Mark Granovetter’s (1973) classic article on finding a job
argued that weak-tie relations (casual, indirect) give actors
better access to new information and opportunities. But,
strong ties (emotionally intense, frequent, direct) restrict
the flow of new information from diverse, distant sources.
► Intimates (kin, close friends) widely share same knowledge, norms, beliefs
► Although strong ties offer beneficial social support (“haven in a heartless
world”), they also result in impacted information & coercive conformity to the
social circle’s expectations (folkish society)
► Weak relations (acquaintances, coworkers) serve as bridges to other social
groupings having information & resources unavailable within one’s intimate
social circle; provide opportunities of individual autonomy via unique structural
location [Simmelian cross-cutting]
► Persons with many weak ties can gain speedy advantages in learning about,
and cashing in on, new opportunities
► Irony that weak ties actually provide stronger form of social capital
for career advancement, financial dealings, conference invitations
CLOSURE vs. STRUCTURAL HOLES
James Coleman: High trust in communities with full
closure networks (i.e., a graph “strong component”),
whose strong ties foster mutual assistance obligations
& socially control deviant behaviors (e.g., of children)
Ronald Burt: Ego gains numerous competitive
advantages and higher investment returns if
ego’s weak, direct-tie relations span structural
holes, thus serving as bridge between its alters
Holes create social capital via brokerage opportunities
► Ego actor gains earlier access to flows of valuable information
► Ego fills structural holes by forging new ties linking its unconnected
alters, extract “commission” or “fee” for providing brokerage services
► Low network constraints result in high performance rewards
► Ego maximizes its self-interests by controlling & exploiting
information, playing one actor against another (“tertius gaudens”)
Who Has Greater Information & Control Benefits?
B
1
A
3
2
7
C
6
James
Robert
5
S-hole is the mechanism underlying
Granovetter’s claim that weak ties are
more useful because they give actors
access to nonredundant information
4
Modified after Burt (2001:33)
Structural Holes in an Ego-Centric Net
To gain information and control benefits from structural holes, players
must identify bridging / brokering opportunities and fill in those gaps
A typical office-politics situation:
- Ego fills a structural hole between
B and both A’s, extracts commission
- Ego can’t fill any hole between A’s
- Indeed, maintaining ties to both A’s
is redundant (and costly)
- If Ego cuts a tie to one A, where
should it invest time & energy
forging a new tie that will maximize
its entrepreneurial opportunities?
SOURCE: Knoke (2001:237)
Two S-Hole Measures: Nonredundancy …
Ability to develop a structural hole decreases in proportion to strength of
direct and indirect ties between alters in an ego-centric network. Network
is nonredundant if it has numerous ties to diverse social worlds. Info
access, timing, or referrals from alter j are redundant if ego has contact
with alter q who is also strongly tied to j.
Redundant contact is
connected with others:
q
piq
Number of nonredundant contacts =
effective size of i’s ego-centric network
mjq
●
EGOi
j
●
●
piq = portion of i’s investment in q
mjq = marginal strength of j-q tie
Find level of redundancy between ego
and specific alter j involving 3rd actors q;
subtract from 1; then aggregate across all
of i’s direct contacts. Thus, effective size
of i’s network is :


j 1  q piq m jq 


… and Constraint
Network constrains ego’s entrepreneurial opportunities when an alter q,
in whom ego has heavily invested, itself has invested heavily in alter j.
Constraint contact also has
the dependence of others:
piq
q
pqj
●
EGOi
pij
●
●
j
Find constraint on ego i by aggregating
all indirect investments (2-step paths)
through third parties (q) and add this sum
to i’s direct proportional investment in j.
Squaring defines constraint as a measure
of the lack of primary structural holes
around j:


Cij   pij   piq pqj 
q


2
“Contact j constrains your entrepreneurial opportunities to the extent that: (a)
you’ve made a large investment of time and energy to reach j, and (b) j is
surrounded by few structural holes with which you could negotiate to get a
favorable return on the investment” (Burt 1992:54).
HOLE SIGNATURE
Each network actor has a characteristic hole signature, whose
pattern reveals the distribution of opportunities and constraints
across relationships in the player’s network (Burt 1992:65-71).
Time & Energy Allocation (pij)
Ego i’s allocation (investment) in
five alters (pij sums to 1.00)
Proportion
Constraints (cij) on entrepreneurial
activities (few structural holes
when close to investment line)
Constraint (cij)
D
C
A
SOURCE: Burt (1992:66)
B
E
Hole signature is the unconstrained
portion of Ego’s total investment
(shaded area). “… provides a quick
visual impression of the volume
and locations of opportunity and
constraint in a network” (p. 67)
LIN’s SOCIAL CAPITAL THEORY
Nan Lin’s general theory of social capital comprises
a set of propositions, applicable under scope
conditions for pyramidal status structures (actors in
higher positions control more capital) and actions
that “evoke other actors as intermediaries” (2001:59).
Core social capital propositions:
1.
Success of an action is positively associated with social capital
2.
Better the origin position, more likely to access and use “better” SC
3.
Stronger the tie, greater SC positive effect on expressive action success
4.
Weaker the tie, greater access to better SC for instrumental action
5.
Proximity to a network bridge, better SC access for instrumental action
6.
Location strength contingent on resource differential across a bridge
7.
Networking effects constrained by nearness to top or bottom of hierarchy
MOBILIZING SOCIAL CAPITAL
Job-seekers, entrepreneurs, work teams try to deploy their network ties
to acquire the use of resources held by their alters. But, they may not
always succeed in gaining access. Johnson & Knoke (2005) argued
that volume of social capital to which ego actually has access is the
aggregate of resources that ego could probably mobilize from its alters:
J
SCi   R j p ji
j 1
SCi = ego i’s social capital from the J alters in its ego-network
pji = ego’s perceived probability of access to use alter j’s resources
Rj = total resources controlled by alter j that could be useful to ego i
• Find a simultaneous equation solution for all J actors in the system
• Create plausible quantitative measures of the two variables
• Identify network and environmental conditions that change the
probabilities of resources flowing across the links from alters to ego
How much SocCap could EGO mobilize?
p1=.8
EGO
p1=.5
R1=4
p4=.5
R4=6
p4=.8
R2=7
p1=.2
p1=.2
R5=3
R3=5
p1=.8
R6=9
References
Burt, Ronald S. 1992. Structural Holes: The Social Structure of Competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Burt, Ronald S. 2001. “Structural Holes versus Network Closure as Social Capital.” Pp. 31-56 in Social
Capital: Theory and Research, edited by Nan Lin, Karen S. Cook, and Ronald S. Burt. New York: Aldine
de Gruyter.
Coleman, James S. 1990. “Social Capital.” Pp. 300-321 in Foundations of Social Theory. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Granovetter, Mark. 1973. “The Strength of Weak Ties.” American Journal of Sociology 78:1360-1380.
Knoke, David. 2001. Changing Organizations: Business Networks in the New Political Economy. Boulder,
CO: Westview.
Johnson, LuAnne R. and David Knoke. 2004. “’Skonk Works Here’: Activating Network Social Capital in
Complex Collaborations.” Forthcoming in Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams.
Leenders, Roger Th. A. J. and Shaul M. Gabbay (eds.). 1999. Corporate Social Capital and Liability.
Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Lin, Nan. 2001. Social Capital: A Theory of Social Structure and Action. New York: Cambridge University
Press.