Social capital among corporate upper echelons and its impacts on executive promotion in Korea

Abstract

Our study provides both theory and evidence about the effect of social capital possessed by individual managers of Korean corporations on their likelihood of promotion to the next hierarchical level. We argue that (1) executive social capital can be dimensionalized into internal and external components, and both components are positively associated with executive promotion and (2) the effects of social capital on promotion are moderated by several contextual factors. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 4759 executives in 199 large Korean companies from 1990 through 1999. The results provide strong support for the predicted main effects, but limited support for the predicted moderation effects.