Measurement of Social Capital and Its Relationship with Innovation in Tondar Irankhodro Car Manufacturing Unit

The social capital concept has developed notably in recent decades and it is regarded as an asset for firms and industrial firms which, by enjoying it, can increase their efficiency. This paper deals with Social Capital Measurement and Its Relationship with Innovation in Tondar Irankhodro car manufacturing unit. The Putnam’s social capital theory is used in order to measure social capital by introducing the indexes such as trust, social network (network membership), and norms. Considering the Tondar car manufacturing unit characteristics and its situation, innovation is measured by software and hardware facilities in order to demonstrate the importance of novel ideas to organizations and level of organizational innovativeness from the respondents’ viewpoints. The survey is used as research method by using Cochrane sampling formula and 293 persons were selected as respondents.The paper’s findings show that the social capital in Tondar Irankhodro car manufacturing unit is at middle level and there are significant and negative relationships between work experience and social capital and trust in managers and institutions. Also, accordingly the social capital level is different between recruitment groups. There are significant and positive relationships between social capital and innovation, between network membership and innovation, and between trust and innovation. The regression analysis shows that the social norms, inter-group and institutional trust can explain 29 percent of innovation changes.