A growing number of sociologists, political scientists, economists, and organizational theorists have invoked the concept of social capital in the search for answers to a broadening range of questions being confronted in their own fields. Seeking to clarify the concept and help assess its utility for organizational theory, we synthesize the theoretical research undertaken in these various disciplines and develop a common conceptual framework that identifies the sources, benefits, risks, and contingencies of social capital.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/4134367.pdf

Social Capital: Prospects for a New Concept

This paper reviews the concept of adaptation of human communities to global changes, especially climate change, in the context of adaptive capacity and vulnerability. It focuses on scholarship that contributes to practical implementation of adaptations at the community scale. In numerous social science fields, adaptations are considered as responses to risks associated with the interaction of environmental hazards and human vulnerability or adaptive capacity. In the climate change field, adaptation analyses have been undertaken for several distinct purposes. Impact assessments assume adaptations to estimate damages to longer term climate scenarios with and without adjustments. Evaluations of specified adaptation options aim to identify preferred measures. Vulnerability indices seek to provide relative vulnerability scores for countries, regions or communities. The main purpose of participatory vulnerability assessments is to identify adaptation strategies that are feasible and practical in communities. The distinctive features of adaptation analyses with this purpose are outlined, and common elements of this approach are described. Practical adaptation initiatives tend to focus on risks that are already problematic, climate is considered together with other environmental and social stresses, and adaptations are mostly integrated or mainstreamed into other resource management, disaster preparedness and sustainable development programs. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Adaptation, adaptive capacity and vulnerability

In the 1990s the concept of social capital defined here as the norms and networks that enable people to act collectively enjoyed a remarkable rise to prominence across all the social science disciplines. The authors trace the evolution of social capital research as it pertains to economic development and identify four distinct approaches the research has taken : communitarian, networks, institutional, and synergy. The evidence suggests that of the four, the synergy view, with its emphasis on incorporating different levels and dimensions of social capital and its recognition of the positive and negative outcomes that social capital can generate, has the greatest empirical support and lends itself best to comprehensive and coherent policy prescriptions. The authors argue that a significant virtue of the idea of and discourse on social capital is that it helps to bridge orthodox divides among scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.

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Social capital: implications for development theory, research, and policy

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

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Social capital: a theory of social structure and action

Introduction Social Capital and Networks in Community Development Framing the LISC Demonstration A Social Capital Perspective on Community Development Practice Getting off to a Good Start Positioning the Program in the Field Organizing CDCs and Developing Indigenous Leadership Building Relationships with the Private Sector Transition and its Consequences Lessons Building Social Capital

Community Organizing: Building Social Capital as a Development Strategy

This symposium presents selected contributions to two panels held at recent Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP) conferences to explore the potential usefulness to planning of the concept of social capital. Its purpose is to stimulate for readers of the Journal the kind of lively and fruitful discussion enjoyed by those who attended the conferences. The contributors summarize the development of the concept and consider alternative definitions of it. This lays the foundation for a broad conversation about whether and how planners can invest in social capital formation in ways that will improve the well-being of the disadvantaged. Mirroring the conference panels, the authors use the interplay of concept development and practical examples to test and illustrate the possible usefulness of different ideas about what social capital is. They discuss why it is important and how it functions in society.

Using Social Capital to Help Integrate Planning Theory, Research, and Practice: Preface

Community development corporations and other nonprofit organizations are increasingly responsible for producing and managing low‐income housing in urban America. This article examines the network of governmental, philanthropic, educational, and other institutions that channel financial, technical, and political support to nonprofit housing sponsors. We analyze the relationships among these institutions and propose an explanation for their success. We then consider challenges the network must confront if the reinvention of federal housing policy is to succeed. Block grants and rental vouchers, the dominant emphases of federal policy, present opportunities and constraints for nonprofit housing groups and their institutional networks. While states and municipalities are likely to continue to use block grants for nonprofit housing, the viability of this housing will be severely tested as project‐based operating subsidies are replaced by tenant‐based vouchers. We recommend ways that the federal, state...

Networks and nonprofits: Opportunities and challenges in an era of federal devolution

Community organizing : building social capital as a development strategy

This article analyzes the extent to which systematic spatial variations in opportunities in metropolitan areas provide a persuasive rationale for three current strategies for stimulating the development of urban communities: enterprise zone programs, community development financial institutions, and community development corporations. It examines whether the strategies are appropriately designed to respond to serious deficiencies in opportunities in distressed inner cities and reviews available evidence about their efficacy in addressing those deficiencies. A review of the literature reveals that poor inner‐city neighborhoods, particularly communities of color, have unequal access to opportunities in numerous areas, including employment, credit and financial services, housing, neighborhood shopping, and social networks and services that provide access to information and resources. The limited best‐case evidence indicates that the three strategies vary greatly in their ability to address these ine...

Avis C. Vidal

Papers

Community Organizing: Building Social Capital as a Development Strategy

Using Social Capital to Help Integrate Planning Theory, Research, and Practice: Preface

Networks and nonprofits: Opportunities and challenges in an era of federal devolution

Community organizing : building social capital as a development strategy

Reintegrating disadvantaged communities into the fabric of urban life: The role of community development