Social Capital in Marketing and Its Implication to the Social Outcome

Abstract

Social capital refers to economic resource involving elements such as norms, trust and social network that facilitate society’s action. From marketing perspective, social capital mediates the experience of the individual, organization and the entire society via enabling shared values to spread through social connections, hence generating social outcome. Nonetheless, conceptualization of social capital within marketing paradigm has been inadequate despite some empirical works. Consequently, elements of norms, trust and social network which signify long term establishment of a business, has often been neglected. In this study, analyses are performed on existing scholarly published papers to gauge the conceptual and empirical findings from existing studies pertaining social capital in marketing as well as its implication towards the society’s outcome. In this regards, we identify the contributions of social capital which mediates the relationship between marketing strategies and its performance. Subsequently, we characterize how social capital in marketing affects the social outcome in the contemporary world. The study proposes that social capital is a useful and appropriate resource to enhance marketing performance that would engender benefits at the societal level. However, social capital could also hinder the performance should it is not being properly acknowledged and assessed. Ultimately, the study will stimulate more efforts to emphasize on social capital among marketers and the community as a means to further enhance the desired social outcome. Additionally, this study will also serve as guidance for future researchers to extend the finding into more profound studies in the area of social capital in marketing.