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The embeddedness of social capital in personal networks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2019

José Luis Molina Open the ORCID record for José Luis Molina [Opens in a new window] ,
Alejandro García-Macías ,
Miranda J. Lubbers  and
Hugo Valenzuela-Garcia
José Luis Molina*
Affiliation:
GRAFO, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, c/ de la Fortuna s/n, 08193-Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain
Alejandro García-Macías
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, Centro de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, Av. Universidad #940, Ciudad Universitaria, 20131 – Aguascalientes, México, (email: [email protected])
Miranda J. Lubbers
Affiliation:
GRAFO, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, c/ de la Fortuna s/n, 08193-Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain (e-mails: [email protected], [email protected])
Hugo Valenzuela-Garcia
Affiliation:
GRAFO, Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, c/ de la Fortuna s/n, 08193-Bellaterra, Barcelona, Spain (e-mails: [email protected], [email protected])
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Name generators (NGs) and position generators (PGs) have been used to measure resources embedded in personal relationships, namely social support and social capital, respectively. Comparisons of these measures adopted NGs that only elicit a small number of alters (max. 5). In this paper we explore whether the measurement of social capital with NGs eliciting larger personal networks (say 15 to 20 alters) gives more comparable results to the PG in terms of occupational prestige. To address this issue, we designed a personal network questionnaire that combined a multiple name generator (MNG) and a PG and enquired about alter characteristics and alter-alter ties for the two sets of nominations simultaneously, allowing their integrated analysis. The questionnaire was implemented in the software EgoNet to collect data from social/environmental entrepreneurs in Spain (N = 30) and Mexico (N = 30. The analysis shows that the two approaches capture mostly non-overlapping sets of personal network members, suggesting that the PG measured in this case available, but not accessed social capital. Remarkably the NG led to a higher average prestige for this occupational group than the PG, but also a lower heterogeneity in prestige. The consequences of using one or another approach and their interpretations are discussed.

Keywords

Brea L. PerryBernice A. PescosolidoMario L. SmallAnn McCraniepersonal networkssocial capitalname generatorposition generatorsocial entrepreneurship
Type
Research Article
Information
Network Science , Volume 8 , Issue 2: Special Issue Ego Networks , June 2020 , pp. 189 - 203
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

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