Goal specific social capital and job satisfaction - Effects of different types of networks on instrumental and social aspects of work

This paper addresses the question "To what extent can job satisfaction be e xplained as the revenue of social capital?" By conceiving someone's social network as social capital we specify conditions under which social ties do lead to job satisfaction. We inquire into the idea of goal specificity of s ocial capital, which implies that a network with a given structure and cont ent will have different impacts on various aspects of job satisfaction. If the content of the ties and the structure of the network at the job engende r material well-being or produce social approval, satisfaction with the cor responding job aspects increases. Data were collected in 1993 using written questionnaires in two Dutch governmental agencies, one with 32 and the oth er with 44 employees. These workers' networks were charted using nine name- generating questions. Social capital, it turns out, is not an all-purpose good but one that is go al specific, even within a single domain of life such as work. Three effect s stand out: First, the structure of the network and the content of the tie s do matter. Networks of strategic, work-related ties promote an employee's satisfaction with instrumental aspects of the job, like income, security, and career opportunities. Second, closed networks of identity-based solidar ity ties improve an employee's satisfaction with social aspects of the job, like the general social climate at work and cooperation with management an d colleagues. Third, a network with a bow-tie structure (i.e., where a foca l actor is the link between two or more mutually exclusive cliques) general ly has strong negative effects on satisfaction with the social side of the job; although a bow-tie type network of trusting ties does increase satisfa ction with the social side. This implies that Krackhardt's hypothesis on th e unpleasant feelings produced by bow-tie type networks has to be specified for the content of the ties that constitute such a network. The most impor tant conclusion of our analysis is that goal specificity of social capital has implications for both structure and content of social networks. Achieve ment of a particular goal, such as satisfaction at work, requires not only networks of a certain structure or ties with a particular content, but spec ifically structured networks of ties with a particular content. (C) 2001 Pu blished by Elsevier Science B.V.