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Dear Harry: I'm wondering what your assumptions are about what constitutes social capital. Would you be willing to chat about that? Thanks, Patricia Sachs >Dear SOCNETters, > >I am doing research on the social capital of groups of individuals >who work together. My study focuses on Episcopal Church vestries, >which are governing boards for individual congregations. My >theoretical framework ties network closure and cohesion with regard >to (1) ideological agreement and (2) the extent of friendly and >long-lasting ties among group members to group-level social capital, >and then ties group-level social capital to group performance. I'm >hoping that the subscribers to the listserv might be willing to help >me with a couple of questions: > >1. The vestries have 8-15 members each. To do >whole-network/vestry/group measures I obviously need a high response >rate from each network/vestry/group. The data is quite sensitive >and somewhat difficult to collect. From a research standpoint, is >there a minimum number of groups needed to do meaningful cross-group >comparisons? How do you account for non-respondents in data >analysis? > >2. Another data-collection idea is to ask individual vestry members >questions like "Who agrees with each other with regard to theology?" >and ask respondents to assess whether member A agrees with members >B, C, D, etc (and B with C, D, etc.)--and so respondents would >assess such agreement for every possible dyad within the group. >(Member A would be the respondent, allowing for ego-centric measures >as well.) Have other researchers tried this sort of approach? Is >it a valid way of gathering data about the social structures of a >particular group? And finally, has anyone studied whether one's >position within a particular group affects his or her responses to >such questions (for example, do more central or more isolated people >differ in some sort of predictable way in their perceptions about >who is connected to who in the group?)? > >I'm grateful for any advice you can provide. Thanks in advance-- > >Harry Van Buren >Doctoral student, University of Pittsburgh (Katz Graduate School of Business) >Visiting Instructor, University of Northern Iowa >319.273.2020 telephone >319.273.2922 facsimile >[log in to unmask] (personal) >[log in to unmask] (academic) -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SOCIAL SOLUTIONS Work Systems Innovation & Design Patricia Sachs, PhD Founder/CEO 427 Casa del Mar Drive, Half Moon Bay, CA 94019 http://www.social-solutions.com [log in to unmask] 650.712.0555 650.712.1557 fax 650.255.2057 cell