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The Causal Status of Social Capital in Labor Markets

Contemporary Perspectives on Organizational Social Networks

ISBN: 978-1-78350-751-1, eISBN: 978-1-78350-752-8

Publication date: 14 July 2014

Abstract

Recent labor market research has called into question whether social capital effects are causal, or are spuriously due to the influence of social homophily. This essay adopts the demand-side perspective of organizations to examine the causal status of social capital. In contrast with supply-side approaches, we argue that homophily is a key mechanism by which organizations derive social capital. We develop an approach to bolster inferences about the causal status of social capital, and illustrate these ideas using data from a retail bank.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, George Lan, Brian Rubineau, Santiago Campero, and the members of the MIT Sloan Economic Sociology working group for their constructive comments and feedback.

Citation

Fernandez, R.M. and Galperin, R.V. (2014), "The Causal Status of Social Capital in Labor Markets", Contemporary Perspectives on Organizational Social Networks (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 40), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 445-462. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X(2014)0000040022

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited