Mobilizing Social Capital

Abstract

Much of the research on mobilizing social capital focuses on the idea that potential resources accessible through existing relationships are converted into actual resources, such as a productive collaboration or useful advice. Less well understood is how this mobilization process occurs, in part because it is difficult to tease apart potential versus actual resources inherent in existing ties that are active and ongoing. To overcome this obstacle, we explore the mobilization process in the situation of dormant ties (i.e., people you used to know) that are reconnected, thereby allowing us to see more clearly how a tie’s potential value can be mobilized and turned into actual value. To do so, we conducted research combining an inductive, qualitative field study of reconnections in the North Italian textile district (Study 1) and, to validate our findings, a vignette-based experiment with U.S. workers (Study 2). We find that the mobilization process can and does fail, sometimes dramatically, when people do not refresh the tie and thereby do not know where they stand with each other. More specifically, we find that three elements—remembering, catching up, and perceiving the tie similarly—are key in successfully mobilizing social capital.