The Right Sort of Social Capital

Abstract Networks however are only a means to an end. It is the quality and the diversity of relationships within those networks — the social capital — that is the critical factor. Social capital is the currency that can make or break your organization. Forget about the vagaries, uncertainties and the complexities of financial capital. It’s the ebb and flow of ideas and aspirations, commitment and collaboration (both inside and outside your organization) that create an invisible coinage, which differentiates successful organizations from the rest. That may seem to many readers to be a statement that is naïve at best and irresponsible at worst, given that it is written in early 2009, a time when the financial markets have imploded at a rate and scale not seen since the Great Depression of 1929. Our argument in the course of the next few pages is that it is exactly the wrong sort of social capital that has played such a significant role in the economic depression unraveling during 2008 and 2009.