Network Facilitation and Social Capital

Abstract

This paper empirically demonstrates that networks of organizations working together can be facilitated by individual network members, even when no facilitators are formally designated by the network members. Regression analyses also revealed statistically significant relationships between the frequency that facilitation functions were facilitated in the inter-organizational network studied and both the level of trust that the network members had for their inter-organizational network and the level of work coordination experienced by the members of the network. These two dependent variables were utilized as indicators of social capital, which was therefore found to be enhanced by inter-organizational network facilitation in this study. This research suggests that conflict resolution practitioners and scholars can work with inter-organizational networks by fulfilling network facilitation roles, training network members in facilitation, or researching facilitation in inter-organizational networks. The context for the study is an inter-organizational political advocacy nonprofit network in Minnesota that organized protest activities against the Iraq War in 2009.