Social Capital
Introduction to Social Capital Social Capital Literature Conceptualisation of Social Capital Social Captial Conclusions Further Research on Social Capital Social Capital References
Evolution of Social Capital
Contemporary Authors on Social Capital
Definition of Social Capital
Capital Debate
Social Captial Theory
Dimensions of Social Capital
Levels of Social Captial
Types of Social Capital
Determinants of Social Capital
Benefits of Social Capital
Downsides of Social Capital
Conceptualisation of Social Capital
Problems with the current conceputalisation of social capital
Social Capital Conceptualisation Approaches
Operationalisation of Social Capital
Measurement of Social Capital
Building Social Capital
Gender Issues and Social Capital
Social Capital and Natural Resource Management
Summary of Social Capital Literature Review

Dimensions of Social Capital

As previously identified, social capital theory suffers from much criticism for being poorly defined and conceptualized. This problem largely stems form the fact that social capital is multi-dimensional with each dimension contributing to the meaning of social capital although each alone is not able to capture fully the concept in its entirety (Hean et al. 2003). The main dimensions are commonly seen as:

  • Trust (Coleman 1988; Collier 1998; Cox 1997; Kawachi et al. 1999a; Kilpatrick 2000; Leana and Van Buren III 1999; Lemmel 2001; Putnam 1993; Putnam et al. 1993; Snijders 1999; Welsh and Pringle 2001)
  • Rules and norms governing social action (Coleman 1988; Collier 1998; Fukuyama 2001; Portes and Sensenbrenner 1993)
  • Types of social interaction (Collier 1998; Snijders 1999)
  • Network resources (ABS 2002; Kilpatrick 2000; Snijders 1999)
  • Other network characteristics (Burt 1997; Hawe and Shielle 2000; Kilpatrick 2000; Putnam 1995) adapted from (Hean et al. 2003, p. 1062).
Other authors have identified different groups of dimensions, for example Liu and Besser (2003) identified four dimensions of social capital: informal social ties, formal social ties, trust, and norms of collective action. Narayan and Cassidy (2001) identify a range of dimensions illustrated in figure 5.

Figure 5. The dimensions of social capital defined by Narayan and Cassidy (2001). Source: Narayan and Cassidy (2001).

Piazza-Georgi (2002) posited that Woolcock (1998) was the first to attempt a dissection of the concept of social capital within a unified conceptual framework. She goes on to state that Woolcock does this by defining four dimensions of social capital, in two pairs of opposing concepts: embeddedness and autonomy, and the macro and the micro level (refer to figure 6).

Four dimensions of social capital as defined by Michael Woolcock: integration, integrity, synergy, linkage

Figure 6. Four dimensions of social capital defined by Michael Woolcock (1998). Source: Woolcock (1998).

Analysis by Onyx and Bullen (2001) suggested that there are eight distinct dimensions of social capital; many are related to each other. Uslaner and Dekker (2001) sum this discussion up by identifying that it is clear that the components of social capital need to be treated as multi-dimensional rather than one-dimensional.