Contexts of Social Capital: Social Networks in Markets, Communities, and Families

While acknowledging the great progress in understanding the dynamics of social capital within the international social science research, Hsung (sociology, National Chengchi U., Taiwan), Lin (sociology, Duke U., US), and Breiger (sociology, U. of Arizona, US) find that there remains a gap in understanding how the macro-societal and micro-individual dynamics of social capital are linked conceptually and methodologically. For that reason, they have focused this collection of 14 papers on the meso-level analysis of social capital--how social capital interacts with social institutions such as markets, communities, and families--beyond individual dynamics yet beneath the surface of entire societies. Based on research conducted around the world, papers address such topics as re-conceptualizing position-generated networks in terms of a duality between symbolic types of social ties and material positions accessed; how the social composition of work, neighborhood, and voluntary associations contexts affect opportunities to meet friends; the functioning of reciprocity in personal networks; network diversity as a positive function of political participation; the use of trust relationships by firms to reduce uncertainty in transactions; economic and social networks in transforming small- and medium-sized enterprises in Taiwan; the distribution of and returns to social capital in urban settings in China, Taiwan, Hungary, and the United States; and empirical testing of theories of parental networks. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Ray-May Hsung is Professor of Sociology at the National Chengchi University, Taiwan.

Nan Lin is Professor of Sociology at Duke University, USA.

Ronald L. Breiger is Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona, USA.