Team-bonding and team-bridging social capital: conceptualization and implications

The paper aims to propose a conceptualization of two types of team social capital: team-bonding and team-bridging social capital. Throughout the conceptual effort, the paper provides suggestions for future research avenues that link team social capital, as a distinct team-level construct, with other team research topics.

The conceptualization of team social capital is based on a review and synthesis of prior research about social networks. The propositions about the relationships of team social capital with other team process and effectiveness variables are developed within the classical input-mediator-output framework.

The conceptualizations of team-bonding and team-bridging social capital and the common measures for each are provided. Moreover, a series of testable propositions regarding the associations between team social capital and team process, the influence of team social capital on team effectiveness and the antecedents of team social capital are made.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

This paper elaborates the concept of team social capital and specifies its implications to various team phenomena. With this conceptual effort, this paper has advanced our knowledge about the nature and role of team social capital in team research.