To Bond or to Bridge? Contingent Effects of Managers' Social Capital on Organizational Performance
Author
Sangyub Ryu
Year
2014
Abstract
A top manager's social capital is considered as a critical resource for determining organizational outcome. However, little is known about the impacts of social capital on public organizations' performance. By dimensionalizing social capital into two, this study investigates impacts of a superintendent’s bonding and bridging social capital on the performance of school districts. Findings show that bridging social capital has positive impacts on organizational performance but in a time of financial difficulty, it worsens negative shocks of financial difficulty. Bonding social capital is found to be exactly the opposite. This study argues that bonding and bridging social capital is not an "either-or" question and top managers are required to balance the two contingent on the situation that their organizations face.
