Institutional Affiliation as a Measure of Organizational Social Capital: A Case Study of Korea

Abstract

It has been a widespread practice in the literature to measure organizational social capital with a summated scale of the number of memberships in voluntary associations. However, treating all associations alike may produce biased conclusions. This study therefore proposes that institutional affiliation, defined as a socially contextualized pattern of group belonging, is a form of organizational social capital. Specifically, I suggest that there are three types of institutional affiliations. First, the primary affiliation is composed of groups in which members share strong ties and bond together with personal, empathic, and enduring relationships. Second, the secondary affiliation comprises certain associations that seek to achieve their proclaimed goals within or beyond their collectivities, in the latter case possibly reaching to the level of a wider community or a whole society. Lastly, the dual affiliation exists as an intersection between the two prior affiliations. Using a nationally representative data set from Korea, the study found that both primary and secondary affiliations are related to occupational status, whereas only the secondary affiliation is associated with civic actions. However, dual affiliation is redundant and unable to form a positive association with either outcome. In conclusion, this study suggests that institutional affiliation is an alternative measure of organizational social capital, taking the contextual characteristics of associations in a case country into account.