Trust as an element of social capital – evidence from a survey of Polish and Spanish students (original) (raw)

The Case of ‘Trust’ – Research on Social Capital in V4 Countries

Studies of Transition States and Societies, 2016

The purpose of this article is fi rst to discuss the basic theoretical approaches used to interpret the concept of trust in the context of social capital and then to present the results of research conducted on trust. The analysis concentrates on elements related to trust in the literature, refl ecting the methodological approaches for assessing and measuring trust. In theoretically conceptualising trust, we generally adopt Hardin's explanations (1991, 2002a, 2002b, 2006), which are then used as an interpretational framework for our research results. The paper mainly analyses and interprets subjective conceptual mental maps of trust developed on the basis of associations obtained in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia using the Associative Group Analysis Technique. The participants were management and economics students and there were 100 of them in each country (50 female and 50 male; 50 from each capital-Prague, Budapest, Warsaw and Bratislava; 50 from a smaller town in each country-Ostrava, Szeged, Olsztyn and Prešov). Altogether 400 students in four countries completed the tasks. In this article, we mainly present the results relating to the Slovak section of the research sample.

The social theory of trust and the sociological theory of social capital

Belvedere Meridionale, 2016

Th e paper off ers a theoretical contribution to the post-millennial debates on social capital. Th e sociological theory of social capital is reconstructed via the social theory of trust. Th e paper shows how the various kinds of interpersonal and institutional trust, combined with norms of cooperation form themselves into social networks to be studied by the three ideal types of social capital: bonding, bridging and linking social capital. Th is version of social capital theory lends itself to the complex empirical analysis of varied social phenomena from child abuse to projectifi cation, shedding light both on the sunny as well as on the dark side of social capital, covering also its dynamic aspects.

Questions about Trust for the Development of Social Capital and Competence

2013

This article aims at discussing the understanding of trust so as to contribute to the handling of social capital, as well as competences, focusing on knowledge transmission in organizations. This work was done based on concepts of trust developed from the theoretic perspectives of Psychology, Anthropology, Sociology, Economics and Administration. It intends to reflect upon the amplitude of the variables that contribute to trust building, basic resource to social capital and competence once it is the element that leads to positive intentions among individuals, which, in their turn, lead to the interaction of relationships between individuals and social groups. This work analysis, and shows trust as a common element to social capital and competence formation, and next it discusses trust in different knowledge areas. The result of this analysis leads to questioning the need to better understand the mechanisms that build trust in different contexts and levels.

Measures of Social Capital and Trust

Trust and trustworthiness are important components of social capital and much attention has been devoted to the problems of their correct evaluation. Attitudinal survey questions as reported in the EVS – European Value Survey - are often regarded as inefficient indicators of trust, since they lack of behavioural underpinnings (Putnam, 1995) which one might desire when measuring trust. In this paper, we consider alternative measures of trust and trustworthiness, based on behavioural assumptions. We construct two relative behavioural measures of trust (RBM1 and RBM2), both based on the ex post measurement of trust, once individuals are informed on the level of trustworthiness of the social group to which they have been allocated during the experiment. Our main finding is that the relative behavioural measures show that trust strongly varies once the individual is informed on the on the level of trustworthiness of the social group to which he\she has been allocated during the experimen...

MEASURES OF SOCIAL CAPITAL AND TRUST ξ

2007

Trust and trustworthiness are important components of social capital and much attention has been devoted to the problems of their correct evaluation. Attitudinal survey questions as reported in the EVS -European Value Survey -are often regarded as inefficient indicators of trust, since they lack of behavioural underpinnings (Putnam, 1995) which one might desire when measuring trust.