Social capital accumulation and enactment in the organizational context: The case of the Chinese transitional economy

The present dissertation explores the relationship between individual or employee levels of social capital (measured by the Extensity and Upper Reachability dimensions of the Position Generator) and three issues: (a) organizational characteristics, (b) department and position work requirements and, (c) the recruitment processes. Using a multilevel sample of 197 Chinese organizations, 526 employees recently hired or promoted and their supervisors (337), the study found that individual levels of social capital were better predicted by differences in their positions within the same organization than by differences in the organizations that they work for. Organizational characteristics are only relevant to individual levels of social capital when the gender of the employee is taken into consideration. Women located in "periphery" organizations (Private/Other or with higher percentages of immigrant labor) had higher levels of Extensity and Upper Reachability than men working for the same type of organizations. The intraorganizational distribution of social capital roughly follows a functional logic, with individuals with higher levels of Extensity located in departments and positions that require social capital. However, there was no "functional" allocation of the Upper Reachability dimension of social capital. The allocation of the Extensity resource to departments and positions requiring social capital to perform their functions was contingent on the presence of market forces, with State/Collective organizations not differentially assigning social capital to departments or positions. The enactment of social capital, measured as the Use of a Recommendation, did not follow any pattern related to work requirements, providing no evidence that enactment is a sign of an individual's real social capital resources. Enactment, however, was more commonly used for internal recruitment searches and for individuals allocated by the State to their positions than in general open-market searches.