relational capital and social capital: one or two fields of research?

Relational Capital and Social Capital: One or two Fields of

Research?

Kaisa Still, Jukka Huhtamäki, Martha G. Russell

ICICKM 2013, Washington, DC, USA

http://bit.ly/icickm2013src

Introductions

Kaisa StillVTT Technical Research Centre of Finlandkaisa.still@vtt.fi

Jukka HuhtamäkiTampere University of Technologyjukka.huhtamaki@tut.fi // @jnkka

Martha G. RussellmediaX at Stanford Universitymartha.russell@stanford.edu

Why this study?

•Social capital and relational capital are often used in literature in association with each other or interchangeably

•We found inspiration from Landström’s (2012) study on whether innovation and entrepreneurship are one or two fields of study

•Instead of looking at the authorship, we went to analyze the reference/citation structures between the authors in the two disciplines

•Citation network can be seen as an information network representing the relatedness of subject manner (Newman 2010)

Method and data

•Scopus data: 2,000 most cited social capital articles and 144 most cited relational capital articles

•Authorship analysis done using Scopus’ in-built analytics

•Reference network: 1.CSV export from Scopus2.Author name extraction (Python)3.Author name curation (Google Refine)4.Network creation (Python & NetworkX)5.Network analysis and visualization

Author Activity

Most active authors in relational and social capital literature

Michael A. Hitt

Social Capital Reference Network

Social capital authorities

Example: Social capital literature

“By ‘social capital,’ I mean features of social life-networks, norms, and trust–that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives.”(Putnam, 1995)

Relational Capital Reference Network

Relational capital authorities

Example: Relational capital literature

Social Capital & Relational Capital

Limitations

•The exact search phrases “social capital” and “relational capital” were used to collect the data•Quality of data-driven analysis is a

function of the quality of the data: Scopus data is limited and e.g. author identification remains a challenge

Conclusions

•Citation network analysis does help in understanding scientific literature and, we claim, in facilitating the development of a subject area•Social capital and relational capital are

related but distinct domains; only 4 out of 20 key authorities are shared•The evolution of the two domains should

be analyzed further to reveal the evolution of the literature and the diffusion of the to concepts

Comments and discussion!

Author contact information

Kaisa StillVTT Technical Research Centre of Finlandkaisa.still@vtt.fi

Jukka HuhtamäkiTampere University of Technologyjukka.huhtamaki@tut.fi // @jnkka

Martha G. RussellmediaX at Stanford Universitymartha.russell@stanford.edu