فصلنامه فرایند مدیریت و توسعه
سال بیست و یکم شماره 2 (پیاپی 69، تابستان و پاییز 1387)

The economists and social scientists of the 20th century were very much concerned with the clarification of the observed differences among countries in terms of economic development. But even later, with the introduction of advanced analytical instruments, the above-mentioned task was not realized. Moreover, the professionals who were practically involved with the development projects came to this understanding that development projects have different destinies. Another important issue was that why the apparently similar countries follow different procedures in the management of public resources and organization of group activities. During the 60's, researchers and development professionals discovered the impact of the labor force quality and since then, the concept of human capital has been taken into consideration. The human capital concept, to some extent, could account for the economic growth causes and differences in the success of development projects. But in the 1980's, new conceptual instruments were introduced whose main focus were on the social relations features among individuals. The social capital concept which was introduced as one of these new instruments, soon gained popularity and acceptance. Its popularity was due to its potentiality of being used at the different social-economic living levels. During the last decade and due to an increase in the identification of domains that have been influenced by social capital, there have been more demands for the empirical examination of this concept. In other words, it seems that demand for the empirical examination of social capital is more than its supply. The complexity and multi-dimension features of social capital has led to the fact that the conceptualization of the concept should be further highlighted. This article attempts to first introduce some of the more well-known social capital evaluation models and to describe a new model which has been designed for social policy purposes through taking advantage of the social capital concept. Other new instruments that provide opportunities for the empirical examination of social capital through evaluation of social networks are also introduced.

Although the approach that has been aimed at social capital has led to achievements in the Social Sciences domain, but again, it has also brought about cases of confusions. Some of these confusions are related to the comparison of the social capital extent at an international level. Most of the researchers believe that there are differences in the social capital indicators of the different societies, where this has made the comparison of social capital among societies difficult. On the other hand, obvious differences are observed in the definitions that have been presented by the theoreticians on the concept of social capital. Therefore, there is a necessity for the scanning of these views and indicators. Researchers believe that two general viewpoints could be presented in this regard: 1. social capital as a social connection instrument, 2. social capital as a social discernment instrument. Most of the definitions and indicators that have been presented on the concept of social capital could be related to one of these two viewpoints. Nowadays, the focus is mostly on the first one, where two types of social capital have been defined in this viewpoint: confining and connecting. The use of appropriate indicators in these theoretical classifications is of utmost importance. That is why, some of the most distinguished definitions and indicators that have been presented for the assessment of social capital have been critically analyzed and examined in this article.

The role and importance of social capital as a modern concept in the social, cultural, political and economic contexts of the societies and its important functions besides the other types of capitals (cultural, human, physical and economic) places a greater attention on the development of this concept. Comparative studies have also been conducted to analyze and compare the positive impacts of social capital in different domains and to present effective strategies for the fortification of this type of capital. In Iran, attempts have also been made to clarify the role and status of social capital but the factors that lead to the creation and development of social capital have not been much examined. The results of other relevant studies show that the Higher Education in general and the Liberal Arts domain in particular play an important role in the creation and development of social capital. In this article, attempts have been made to examine the nature of social capital and how it is influenced by the Liberal Arts domain. Effective strategies have also been suggested to strengthen the role of social capital through the Liberal Arts domain.

The purpose of the present article is to examine the relationship between social capital and the economic performance of Iran analytically and experimentally. The theory of this study is. Besides the other factors like physical and human capital, social capital (taken as mutual trust among people and economic units) is an important factor that could help define the differences in the economic growth of the regions. Based on such viewpoint, trust is regarded as "belief in people's ties to their commitments in economic-social interactions". In reality, such beliefs would facilitate the establishment of interactions and transactions. First, a theoretical framework has been presented to demonstrate the positive impacts of social capital on economic growth, and this relationship was tested in an experiment that was conducted in 2001 among the different provinces. For this reason, through using the data of the 28 provinces, the relationship between trust (specific and general trust) and economic growth was examined. In order to analyze the impact of trust (trusting the various economic-social groups) on economic growth, the social-economic groups which came under the "general trust" category were divided into three sub-categories: legal, social and economic authorities. The impact of each of these sub-categories on economic growth was separately examined. The results indicate that the impact of general trust is more intense and its significance level is much higher. Also, the division of general trust into the three sub-categories of legal, social and economic authorities has helped define the significant differences among the provinces in justifying changes in the economic growth. Trust in economic and legal authorities had a higher impact on the economic growth of the provinces.

Within the framework of a country's development and besides the other types of capitals (natural, human and material), social capital could be regarded as both the input and output of development. In the economy of the underdeveloped countries, social capital has been called as the missing link of development. Due to the impact of social capital on the different aspects of human lives and their mental health, this study attempts to examine the impact of the relationship between social capital and mental health. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of social capital and its various dimensions (inner-group, outer-group and communicative) on student's mental health. This study was conducted among the students of the Social Sciences Department of Shiraz University through benefiting from the theories of Woolkak and Naryan and utilizing the survey type of methodology. The type of sampling used was of quota nature and the number of participants was 273. The results statistically indicate that, there is a positive and meaningful relationship between social capital and mental health. In a sense, if a person has the benefit higher level of social capital, he/she will consequently have a higher level of mental health. There was also a positive and meaningful relationship between inner-group social capital and mental health consequently. But no meaningful relationship was observed between the two variables of outer-group social capital and mental health.

Social capital is an important social concept which plays a major role in the development (social development, in particular) of a society. In other words, it is a means through which the other types of capitals (including economic, human and cultural) could be attained. The important domains that are influenced by social capital are the family and education institutions. The importance of the social capital concept and the assumption that student's performance at different educational levels is affected by their own and their family's social capital, led us in this study to define the theoretical and empirical literatures on the issue of social capital in family institutions and its impact on the education of children. In other words, this study analyzes the other relevant studies that have been conducted in and out of the country. The theoretical framework of this study is based on Coleman's theories on the issue of "familie's social capital" and an integration of other relevant theories. The impact of independent variables like inner-family and outer-family relations on educational achievements has also been evaluated. The research methodology that has been utilized is of literature review and meta-analysis nature. The had a significant impact on the dependent variable "educational achievements".