Women Creating Social Capital and Social Change

As Community Development Organizations (CDOs) are the primary vehicle for development in low-income neighborhoods, scholars have begun to examine them in terms of the degree to which they increase citizen participation, increase civic capacity, as well as stabilize and revitalize neighborhoods through the creation of social capital. According to Putnam, civic action requires the existence of social capital; he defines social capital as norms, trust, and networks. As Gittell and Vidal note, there has been a virtual industry of interest and action created around the implication of Putnam\u27s findings for the development of low-income communities. This article is an excerpt from a study published by the Howard Samuels State Management and Policy Center, The Graduate School and The University Center of the City University of New York entitled, Women Creating Social Capital and Social Change: A Study of Women-led Community Development Organizations

A Mixed Methods Approach to Studying Social Capital In An International Coalition

Public relations as a communication practice contributes to a fully functioning society by bringing organizations, groups and individuals together to discuss issues. Public relations also helps to build advocacy coalitions. Rhetoric enables the creation and sustainment of coalitions and helps coalition members achieve a shared understanding of the events and issues they seek to address. Social capital emerges from the communicative relationships within a coalition's network. Public relations plays a vital role in advocating and maximizing the efforts of individuals and organizations in advocacy coalitions.This study began with the intent to address three conceptual gaps in the public relations and network literature. First, there is a need for empirical evidence supporting or refuting claims that shared meaning and social capital are related. Shared meaning has been depicted as an outcome of organizations, groups, and individuals communicating their interpretations of events and issues. Social capital has been portrayed as an outcome of complex networks of relationships among organizations, groups and individuals. Second, this dissertation explored previous researchers' claims that organizations' network positions give them influence in an advocacy coalition. The literature suggests that organizations should position themselves at structural holes to broker information and resources. Third, this study expanded the context of social capital research to examine an international coalition that relies on mediated communication. Prior research has suggested that mediated communication can reduce social capital thus potentially diminishing the social capital in a virtual advocacy coalition.This dissertation studied the social capital and shared meaning in a virtual international advocacy coalition. A multi-method study, which included a textual analysis, interviews, and a network analysis survey, focused on the Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA). SuSanA is an international advocacy coalition with 225 local and international NGOs, private firms, and government entities. The members of this advocacy coalition shared a common vision of providing people around the world with access to proper sanitation. Members in the coalition rely on mediated communication channels to coordinate their efforts.The findings revealed a strong association between shared meaning and social capital in dense portions of the advocacy network. The study's results suggested that organizations' network positions were related to being perceived as cooperative, distinguished as important, and sharing meaning with others. The data also indicate that the richness of communication channels augments social capital within the network. In measuring social capital, the study helped to operationalize the communication dimension of social capital using fantasy theme analysis from symbolic convergence theory. The results further develop the use of social network analysis to study social capital by demonstrating a method to assess communication and shared meaning within a network. The study demonstrates public relations has a role to play in building social capital and fostering shared meaning within networks

Enterprise Social Networking Sites and Knowledge Sharing Intentions in Virtual Teams

The use of virtual teams have become an essential component for successful organizations competing in the global marketplace. Virtual teams are formed to leverage various expertise throughout the organization, yet a challenge facing these teams is knowledge sharing. This is often due to the lack of trust and reciprocity which is traditionally formed during initial face-to-face interactions. The current research explores how the use of an Enterprise Social Networks (ESN) acts as an alternative to FtF interactions allowing individuals to form perceptions of future team members without meeting. Through the use of the Elaboration Likelihood Model, this study proposes exploring the formation of social capital perceptions through the use of ESN profiles. These perceptions are then evaluated to understand their impact on knowledge sharing intention within the team. The goal of this research is to understand how an ESN can help alleviate issues surrounding knowledge sharing in virtual teams

Virtual Team Success: The Impact of Leadership Style and Project Management Experience

The ability of project managers to effectively lead virtual teams is an important factor in the teams\u27 success. Since the 1990s, organizations\u27 use of virtual teams to plan and execute projects has increased, yet virtual teams continue to have high failure rates. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine whether a relationship exists between leadership styles, years of project management experience, and success of virtual teams. I used the path-goal theory of leadership as the theoretical framework for this study. A nonpurposive random sample of 160 project managers in the San Francisco Bay Area who had obtained the Project Management Professional-® designation issued by the Project Management Institute completed an online survey. Multiple regression was conducted to determine whether a statistically significant relationship existed among variables. The results of the regression analysis were statistically significant, F(2, 142) = 39.21, p = .000, R2 = .35, indicating that a combination of leadership style and project management experience can predict success of virtual teams. Leaders of organizations can use the findings of this study in training virtual team leaders. The findings may contribute to social change in organizations that use or plan to use virtual teams in their operations. Team leaders can apply the findings in developing virtual team management strategies. Effective management may reduce the failure rate of virtual teams, which could lead to higher job satisfaction and employee retention among team members, increased employment opportunities, increased urbanization and gentrification of local communities, and reduced flight of capital. Effective management of virtual teams could thus support socioeconomic empowerment and a higher standard of living in local communities and improve knowledge and tolerance of cultural and geographic diversity