Position of Rural Production Cooperatives in Capacity Building of Social Capital of local communities in Hamadan County

The purpose of the present research is to investigate the position of rural production cooperatives in the formation and of social capital. This study is descriptive-analytical survey-based study. Data were collected using library studies and field method using a questionnaire. The statistical population of the study consisted of 1655 members of rural production cooperatives in Hamadan, Iran, out of whom 180 were selected using Cochran formula by proportional random sampling method. Content validity of the questionnaire was assessed by subject matter experts. The construct validity and reliability of the construct were confirmed by calculating the composite reliability and Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The results showed that the level of capacity building of bonding and linking social capital was medium and low, respectively. Pearson correlation results confirmed the significant relationship of age, membership experience in the cooperative, agricultural experience and number of training courses with the variables of capacity building of linking and bonding social capital. In this regard, there was no significant difference between men and women in terms of capacity building of bonding social capital but capacity building of linking social capital of men was significantly higher than women. The results obtained in relation to the values of the fit indices showed that both the models of measuring capacity building of bonding and linking social capital had good fitting indices. The results of confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the bonding interaction (λ = 0.83) was the strongest indicator of the capacity building of bonding social capital and formal relationship network (λ = 0.84) was the strongest indicator of the capacity building of linking social capital.