مجله مدیریت سرمایه اجتماعی
سال هشتم شماره 3 (پاییز 1400)

Due to the role and importance of local governments in the administration of social affairs, this study set out to examine the capacities of local governments (i.e., city councils and municipalities) to develop social capital in Iran. The study at hand was applied in terms of purpose and descriptive in terms of research method. The data was collected using document analysis and interviews. In order to analyze the obtained data, thematic analysis technique was applied. This qualitative study was carried out in two phases. In the first phase – i.e., library research– the texts about the legal duties of city and village Islamic councils and municipalities were probed. Then, in the second phase – i.e., field study – interviews were made with 18 experts, including Qom City Council and Municipality experts up to the point that saturation was achieved. The second phase provided 58 subthemes, which were classified into 12 organizing themes and 5 overarching ones. The overarching themes were organizational trust, political trust, the creation of sympathy, the enhancement of social trust feeling, and the organization of social issues. At the end, four approaches were used to validate the identified capacities.

The main point in social capital is “relationship.” As the first place in which the human experiences committed relationship, family has a key role in the production of social capital. The main purpose of this study was to carry out an analysis of the family social capital as represented in the Qur’ān with an emphasis on the marital relationships and its classification into cognitive, structural, and relational factors. This was approached through a qualitative approach, i.e., a thematic analysis of the qur’ānic verses. The cognitive factor was found to be formed based on the mental models of the individuals guided by their perceptions about the purpose of the relationship between man and woman. From the viewpoint of the Qur’ān, this purpose is the attainment of peacefulness and the continuation of the human species existence. This paves the ground for convergence and the tendency to having relationship as a couple. Coupleness is the structural factor of family social capital. In the Qur’ān, coupleness is said to have three types, i.e., illegitimate coupleness, friendly coupleness, and marital coupleness. Only the third type is corroborated by the Qur’ān and the other two forms are prohibited by it. The continuation of the coupleness structure depends on the communicative factors of “amity” and “grace” as the two main factors in the organization of the couple’s mutual behaviors. Amity means showing affection and grace means kind efforts to remove the shortcomings and lacks of the other parts.

Environmental factors are deemed as destructive, threatening, and actual challenges facing the foundations and performance of governmental organizations, and this has led some to call them the organizational rip currents. In order to counter this phenomenon, organizations can use organizational transparency and social capital concepts. The study at hand was carried out to manage organizational rip currents with an emphasis on the social capital and organizational transparency variables. The study was applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlational in terms of research method. The statistical population of the study regarded some of employees of governmental organizations in Mazandaran province, out of which a sample of 191 individuals was selected using cluster random sampling method. The data collection instrument was a questionnaire whose reliability and validity was confirmed through Chronbach’s alpha and combined validity by the professors and experts familiar with the topic. The data analysis was done by Pearson correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling using SPSS and PLS software packages. The findings of the structural equation modeling demonstrated that all paths from social capital and organizational transparency to organizational rip currents management and from social capital through the organizational transparency as a mediating variable to organizational rip currents management were significant and the relationship between them could be confirmed. Then, it could be concluded that the investment on social capital along with social transparency can help manage organizational rip currents.

Most research on social capital has stressed its positive aspects and advantages, while informal relations and trust-based networks shaped based on social capital can enhance individual’s access to information, improve their trust and confidence, and increase the possibility of corruption. Taking this into account, the present paper aimed at studying the role of social capital in the tendency to administrative corruption through a descriptive-correlational research method. The statistical population was consisted of all governmental organizations’ employees, out of which 391 individuals were selected using convenience sampling technique. The questionnaire by Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) was used to investigate the social capital conditions, and the questionnaire by Gorsira et al (2016) was applied to study corruption motivators and tendency to corruption. Findings indicated that the existence of social capital among employees in the public sector intensifies the corruption motivators’ impact on the tendency to corruption, and if such individuals and groups have high levels of social capital, the possibility that corruption motivators could lead to administrative corruption is significantly increased.

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.

The purpose of this study was to model the social capital building factors before and after the outbreak of COVID-19 with an emphasis on the ethnicity factor in Khuzestan province, Iran. The study was applied in terms of purpose and descriptive in terms of research method. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire. In order to assess the validity of the questionnaire, the criterion-referenced indicator was used in line with the factor analysis of the research model. A statistical sample of 1536 participants was selected using systematic random sampling method from among the inhabitants of the cities of the province with populations over 150 thousand people. In order to analyze the data, tests such as discriminant analysis, logistic regression, multivariate variance and covariance, and structural equation modeling were carried out using SPSS 24 and SmartPLS 3.  The findings of the study indicated that the four factors of social capital – namely institutional, natural, spontaneous, and external factors – are different based on the dependent variable of “ethnicity” in the periods “before and after COVID outbreak.” That is to say, social capital in general had the highest correlation with “ethnicity” “before and after COVID outbreak,” while social variable had the lowest correlation “before COVID outbreak” in the discriminant index. Moreover, in the structural equation modeling, the institutional factors of social capital had on average the biggest difference with the “ethnicity” factor.