The Explication of the Effective Factors and Barriers of the Formation of Inter-Organizational Social Capital Using the Grounded Theory Approach

This study was carried out to design an inter-organizational social capital model in the Iranian executive organizations using qualitative method and grounded theory based on Glaser’s approach. The main research instrument of this pure, descriptive-exploratory study was semi-structured interviews with the informed and expert individuals who were active in the intended domain of the study. Sampling was done using snowball sampling to select participants from among the executive organizations’ managers and university professors who had the intended characteristics. After conducting 17 interviews and collecting data, the obtained data was coded. In the tripartite coding stages – i.e., open, axial, and selective coding – some concepts, categories, and themes were derived from the data, and this process continued up until theoretical saturation was achieved. At the end, the inter-organizational social capital model was designed in five main levels that included factors such as inter-organizational trust, congruence and sympathy, inter-organizational cooperation, and sovereign belonging as the characteristics of inter-organizational social capital, the enhancing factors including themes such as organizational factors, educational factors, ideological factors, and cultural factors, the antecedent factors including individual characteristics, organizational characteristics, common goals, and extensive inter-organizational communications, the consequences level including consequences at the organizational and national levels, and the formation barriers level including intra-organizational and extra-organizational barriers. The provided model can be used to create and enhance social capital among executive organizations and benefit from the consequences.