Playing well together: Creating corporate social capital in strategic alliance networks

Corporate social capital involves the likelihood of ego actors accessing and using the resources held by their network alters to facilitate work-related goals. Corporate social capital networks span multiple levels of analysis from individuals, to workteams, organizations, and organizational field-nets. Repeated interactions strengthen social capital ties by building trust and confidence among actors, reducing the temptation to behave opportunistically towards partners, and facilitating numerous favorable outcomes. However, these relations can become liabilities when agents use their individual social capital to benefit their organizations. Social capital concepts may help to explain the evolution of the strategic alliance network in the Global Information Sector, a multi-industry system whose collaborative agreements grew exponentially from 1989 to 2000, creating a complex network of overlapping partnerships. The evolving alliance network comprises a collective structure of corporate social capital, an organizational field-net that simultaneously facilitates and constrains its member firms' opportunities.