RANO ~ Samenvatting papers
Hoorcollege 1.
What is social capital, and why should you care about it?
Social capital refers to the resources available in and through personal and business networks. These
resources include information, ideas, leads, business opportunities, financial capital, power and
influence, emotional support, goodwill, trust and cooperation.
- Social = these resources are not personal assets, no single person owns them. These reside in
networks of relationships.
- Capital = emphasizes the social capital, like human capital or financial capital is productive ; it
enables us to create value, get things done, achieve our goals, fulfil our missions in life, and
make our contributions to the world.
Individualism ; the cultural belief that everyone succeeds or fails on the basis of individual efforts and
abilities.
The source of success is natural talent, intelligence, education or effort success is an individual
matter. Individualism is ‘a broadly perpetrated fiction in modern society’; this fiction is that society
consists of a set of independent individuals, each of whom acts to achieve goals that are
independently arrived at, and that the functioning of the social systems consists of the combinations
of these actions of independent individuals.
Success is social; It depends on our relationships with others. All the ingredients of success that we
customarily think of as individual ( see below) , are intricately intertwined with networks;
- Natural talent; individual success is interrelated with the performances of others.
- Intelligence ; illustrates the difference between the brain and the mind; everyone is
born with a physical brain; but a human mind develops only through relationships.
- Education; there are many relationships involved in human education.
- Effort; effort is clearly related to success.
- Luck ; creative boost their luck by bouncing their ideas of others, learning from
others, helping others and so on.
People with rich social capital are paid better, promoted faster, and promoted at younger
ages. Entrepreneurial opportunities arise when a network contains many ‘structural holes’ or
gaps. A structural hole means a person is linked with two other people who are not
themselves directly connected.
Influence stems from various sources – formal authority, coercion ( control of punishments ),
expertise, and one’s position in networks of workflow, communication and friendship.
As much as 70% of learning in the workplace takes place via informal interactions. These
organizational cultures promote learning by doing, teaching and coaching and mentoring,
sharing good ideas and spreading best practices, and cooperation and collaborating rather
than competing with others.
Social capital influences the use, performance, and success of strategic alliances. A well-
connected top management team is more likely to learn about and use effective takeover
defences. There is also a direct link between social capital and the quality, purpose and
meaning of life. Happiness is defined by; meaningful work and the quality of relationships
with others. People with good networks enjoy better mental and physical health.