A Computational Model of Social Capital

Abstract

This Chapter presents the Bayesian Belief computational model of social capital developed within the context of virtual communities discussed in Chapter 7. The development of the model was based on insights drawn from research. The Chapter presents the key variables constituting social capital in virtual communities and shows how the model was created and updated. The scenarios described in the Chapter were authentic cases drawn from several virtual communities. The key issues predicted by the model as well as challenges encountered in building, verifying and updating the model are discussed. The ultimate goal of the Chapter is to share experiences in developing a model of social capital and to encourage the reader to think about how such experiences can be extended to model similar constructs or build more scenarios to update the model. The model presented in the Chapter is a proof-of-a concept and a demonstration of a procedure. Notwithstanding that some of the model’s predictions are accurate while other require more substantial empirical corroboration.