Exploring Network Measures of Social Capital: Toward More Relational Measurement

Although social capital is a relational concept, existing studies have focused less on measuring social relations. This article fills the gap by reviewing recent studies that used network measures grouped into three types according to the measurement level. The first group defined social capital as an individual asset and used node-level measures to explain personal benefits. The second group defined social capital as a collective asset and used graph-level measures to describe collective properties. The third group used subgraph-level measures to explain the development of social capital. This article offers a link between the concepts and measures of social capital.

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This article reviews recent studies on measuring social capital, categorizing them into individual asset, collective asset, and subgraph-level measures. These studies bridge the gap in measuring social relations and provide a link between the concepts and measures of social capital.