A Social Capital Index for Community Partnerships

Abstract

This study proposes and develops one way to examine dynamics and performance of voluntary community health partnerships through the development of a social capital index. Selected questions from a pre-existing survey [1] were used to construct three first-order concepts: Trust, Involvement, and Reciprocity. A second-order concept, Social Capital, was then derived. Individual scores were aggregated to the partnership level, and a social capital index was constructed. For validity testing, relationships of the index and accomplishment measures were examined. The index was also related to field notes on three partnerships. The chi-square value of the model indicates the concept of social capital was well captured with survey data. The index is significantly correlated with perceived accomplishment measures. The social capital concept is a viable perspective for examining community health partnerships. Its introduction should enrich our understanding of inter-organizational dynamics and performance. More extensive modeling illustrating the dynamics and performance of partnerships can be developed based on this concept.