Transcript SOC 8311 Basic Social Statistics

SOCIAL CAPITAL
Social Capital Resources accruing to an ego actor through
direct and indirect relations with its alters that facilitate ego’s
attainment of its expressive or instrumental goals.
“… inheres in the structure of
relations between persons
and among persons”
(Coleman 1990:302)
“… resources embedded in a
social structure which
are accessed and/or
mobilized in purposive
action” (Lin 2001:12)
“… at once the resources
contacts hold and the
structure of contacts in
the network” (Burt 1992:12)
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
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) 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 entrepreneurial opportunities

Irony that weak ties actually provide a stronger form of social capital
for career advancement, financial dealings, conference invitations
Closure vs. Structural Holes
James Coleman: High trust in a community with
full closure networks (“strong component”) and
strong ties fosters mutual assistance obligations
and the social control of deviant behaviors (e.g.,
disciplining children who misbehave in public)
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”)
Structural Holes from Ego’s Viewpoint
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)
Who Has Greater Information & Control Benefits?
Burt (2005:14)
S-hole is the mechanism underlying Granovetter’s claim that weak ties are
more useful because they give actors access to nonredundant information
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:
piq
q
mjq
●
EGOi
j
●
●
piq = portion of i’s investment in q
mjq = marginal strength of j-q tie
Number of nonredundant contacts =
effective size of i’s ego-centric network
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:
q
piq
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, which apply under the scope
conditions of pyramidal status structures (e.g., a
bureaucracy where actors in higher positions control
more capital than subordinates) 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 the 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
 Community social capital is the aggregate of community orgs’ SC
 Strength of ties in an interorg’l network ≈ probability of access
 Look for structural holes that network brokers could fill, which will
increase a community’s SC by mobilizing more total resources
How much Social Capital could EGO mobilize?
Thicker line = higher probability of accessing another’s resources
R = resources held by actor; p = probability of actor giving access
p1E=.8
EGO
p2E=.5
R1=4
p14=.5
R4=6
p24=.8
R2=7
p25=.2
p3E=.2
R5=3
R3=5
p36=.8
R6=9
Practical Implications of Social Capital
As network analysts, we should practice what we preach:
 Cultivate your connections to people & organizations
that control access to important information and social
resources
 Pay it back … and forward. You increase your chances
of access by always being willing to help those in need
Remember:
It’s not what you know,
nor whom you know,
but whom you know who knows what you
don’t know – and is willing to tell you so.
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.
Burt, Ronald S. 2005. Brokerage & Closure: An Introduction to Social Capital. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press.
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.
Johnson, LuAnne R. and David Knoke. 2004. “‘Skonk Works Here’: Activating Network Social Capital in
Complex Collaborations.” Advances in Interdisciplinary Studies of Work Teams 10:243-262.
Knoke, David. 2001. Changing Organizations: Business Networks in the New Political Economy. Boulder,
CO: Westview.
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.