The basic premise of human capital and social capital is that both have “value”
It is important to know that people bring to their job more than just human capital acquired from education and work experience. They also bring social capital, the resources they can obtain through their network of relationships. These relationships could be social/professional networks, alumni, affiliations, memberships, technical forums, hobby groups etc. In today’s world of increasing need for collaboration, cross cultural interactions and knowledge sharing, human capital might have less value without social capital. An individual with high social capital tends to grow up faster in career, gets recognized easily (both within and outside the organization). They can validate organizational goals and help teams to achieve, strike business deals faster and become better brand ambassador for companies. I think companies should start giving wieghtage to social capital of candidates while making hiring decisions.
One of the biggest challenges of a CEO today is to spot and nourish leadership talent who can create the business context of future relevance. Organizations with a good human capital can interpret/create business models based on their subject matter expertise, technical competencies, and access to content from multiple sources. Social capital complements human capital to create a competitive edge for business and/or foster innovation. Organizations/Individuals with high Social capital can see the bigger picture by combining experiences of self and others in their network, able to interpret market drivers better, benchmark best practices and pitch products/services effectively.
We often say “hiring the best talent”. Talent generally is referred to the functional and behavioural competencies of an individual. It is equally important to hire the talent who can bring a better social capital value to the organization. Individuals with higher social capital value would be target hires of start-up companies as these people bring in a competitive advantage to a start-up culture.
Organizations are increasingly recognising social capital as a key success factor. It would be a value-add to incorporate social capital as one of the factors to assess high potential talent for certain roles. It will be interesting to explore the availability and validity of assessment tools to measure social capital value.