Social capital is a kind of capital that draws benefits from social relation (Krishna and Uphoff 2002; Portes 1998) - predominantly describes the circumstances of an individual in groups and networks to secure benefits (Sobel 2002). While, Bourdieu (1986) described it as, an attribute of an individual in a social context derived from advantages and opportunities available to and through certain members of the community. Likewise, pioneer social capital theorist (Coleman 1988; 1990) had conceptualised and studied social capital as individual resource which is socially structured; and the extent of social capital is denoted by the actual and potential resources accessible through one’s social relations (Nachpiet 2009). According to Bourdieu (1983) …show more content…
This explains the influence of social networks linking to Social capital-in a way that social capital refers to the resources to which individuals or groups have access through their social networks (Bourdieu 1986; Portes 1998). At the same time, proclaiming of social network as the prior basis of social capital (Coleman 1990) by notable author vitalizes to explore both formal and informal networks, while studying the structural social capital (Narayan and Pritchett 1999). Persuasively, the measure of social capital should consist of one of the measures as network connectivity (Moore 2010). Since social network characteristics are defined in terms of, frequency of interactions, proximity of stay of members in the network, and many other related variables, hence the same are included in examining social capital at individual level (Cheung and Chan 2010). Cogently the later studies, tried to capture it with diverse set of indicators, namely –frequency and quality of contacts with neighbours, social trust, informal sociability, participation in organisations (Lancee and Dronkers 2011; Tolsma et …show more content…
2009). Favourably, another study describe that, “Group level social interaction, group level social trust cues, and group level shared codes and language constitute social capital of the group(Huang and Lin 2011). On added note, connectedness, networks and the nature of relationships within a group are also elicited vital aspects of social capital at group level (Pretty and Ward 2001). Therefore while developing the index for social capital, along with nature and networks of the people, also suggested to include characteristics of formal and informal groups, heterogeneity and group functioning in terms of contribution and participation in group decision making in the study (Narayan and Pritchett