Dimensions of Corporate Social Capital: Toward Models and Measures

Abstract

Shin-Kap Han Ronald L. Breiger Despite an emerging consensus on the importance of corporate social capital, little work has been done on the analytical problem of which aspects, precisely, of a corporate network might be identified as manifesting the concept. Where in a specific configuration of network ties is the corporate social capital located? Is network capital a unitary phenomenon or are there various ways to conceptualize it? In addressing these questions, we formulate models for corporate networks that produce counts for the expected number of ties between each pair of actors on the basis of sets of parameters which are themselves measures of network capital. The model we prefer decomposes a network into separable dimensions comprising status, volume, and proximity. We apply the models to a network of 'doing deals' in which billions of dollars of finance capital was raised by syndicates of major U.S. investment banks, data of Eccles and Crane (1988). We show that the model performs well with respect to empirical validity. The modeling framework can be applied and extended to other corporate network settings, and provides measures appropriate for theoretical analyses of markets and corporate relations conceptualized as embedded within social fields.