Employees’ social capital in South Korea: A systematic review and implications for HRD research and practice

Abstract

ABSTRACT As the workplace is calling for more collaboration and teamwork, social capital has become increasingly popular in the human resource development (HRD) and management fields. In this article, we systematically reviewed social capital research in South Korea by focusing on the definitional and methodological issues as well as the impact of social capital, as documented in 57 empirical studies analysed. Our findings showed that social capital researchers have witnessed an upsurge of interest in social capital in Korea since the 2010s. In addition, we mapped out the nomological network of social capital research by incorporating all prior empirical evidence. Finally, we identified the lack of indigenous conceptualisations of social capital and methodological limitations in previous research. We proposed that utilising social network analysis and diversifying research approaches would provide additional insights that will advance current social capital and HRD literatures.