Organizational Social Capital: An Instrument for Developing Municipalities Financial Resources

As the result of social interactions, social capital has its origin in the society,functions as the basis for social control, and is very probable to be createdby each and every individual. Such capital has effects on social texture of asociety, facilitates group actions and social cooperation, brings about socialconsolidation and consensus, promises control and order, and, all in all, pavesthe way for development. An organization is comparable to a society whereinthe accumulation of such capital results in the development of other types ofthe capitals of that organization, such as financial resources, and has sustainabledevelopment in consequence. The current article aims at introducing social capitalas an effective instrument for municipalities financial development and offeringoperational solutions for exploiting it; thus, after investigating the concept ofsocial capital in local communities, the current article analyzes the effects of suchcapital on society-development planning as a modern approach to urban planningand management which comprises the multidimensional development of localsociety resources and creation of sustainable income resources for municipalities.Then, one type of organizational social capital, called internal organizationalsocial capital, is discussed. Afterwards, the effects of this type of social capital onthe development of the resources of municipalities will be investigated and, then,operational suggestions are made for increasing organizational social capital inmunicipalities and the case of the municipalities of Brazil in exploiting internalorganizational social capital is introduced. Practical suggestions are also madeso that urban managers recognize the importance of developing social capital inlocal communities as well as in municipalities in order to develop their financialresources.