Social/Network Power: Applying Social Capital Concept to Explain the Behavioral Tendency of Individuals in Granting Favors within the Organizational Context

Abstract

The concept of Social Capital started from the domain of sociology and was transferred to broader application in other social sciences, such as economics and politics. It has also migrated from the inter‐individual to the intersocietal level of society. This study returns to the original context of Social Capital by applying it to explain the behavioral tendency of individuals within the organizational context. The concept of Social/Network Power borrows the concept of Social Capital to explain how someone can access the power of other person, both formal and personal‐based, by accessing its power base through social network. The independent variables used in this study are length of relationship, valence of relationship, existence of past favors, existence of potential favors, source of power and gender. This study uses the quasi‐experimental method of policy capturing to determine whether social networks enables individuals to access the power base of other person, both formal and personal. This study uses 33 volunteers that were given 48 different scenarios, which yields 1583 unique cases for analysis.

The result shows that all independent variable, except gender, has significant influence toward the behavioral tendency of individuals in granting favors by lending their power base, both formal and personal. However, using log linear model, the analysis shows that the effect of past favors toward the tendency to grant favors are moderated by the source of power. Owed favors have greater effect toward influencing the tendency to lend personal power base than formal power base to pay for those favors.

Keywords: Power, Social Capital, Individual Behavior

JEL Classification: M12, M50