The best way to generate social capital – by accident

September 22, 2010 by
Filed under: Public policy, The RSA 

Once in a while you read something which you know you will find yourself quoting for years. Maybe it’s funny, surprising, shocking but more often it is because it confirms something we have long believed but not found a way of proving and expressing powerfully.

Recently I came across an example in the RSA Journal and today I am going to quote it at length (in blog terms). It is from a piece by Mario Luis Small, Professor of Sociology at Chicago University, and describes the findings of a research study among mothers in New York:

Levels of commitment

Consider the centres that cared for the children of the women we studied for several years. We interviewed the directors of many different kinds of childcare centre – 23 in all, ranging from the commercial to the nonprofit, the secular to the religious, the corporate to the standalone – and observed what staff, children, mothers and fathers (though few of the latter were visible) did over the course of operations.

At the end of our study, nothing surprised us more than how much the centres differed in their social capital. In some, most mothers forged new friendships among the other parents; together, they organised parties, arranged play dates, attended movies and dinners, and developed what many of them referred to as a new community. Joining the centre had measurably transformed their social networks (as we confirmed through statistical analyses of representative data). In other centres, mothers knew few, if any, of the other parents; they did not party or dine with them, or babysit their children. These centres served as little more than drop-off and pick-up locations. In one rare example, the director had even tried to build social capital but failed: she threw a pizza party for parents to socialise and almost none of them attended.

The socially effective centres did not differ from the others in the amount of leisure time the mothers had at their disposal; in all of them, most mothers worked full-time. Race, class, lifestyle and neighbourhood did not explain the difference, and nor did these centres have particularly heroic directors committed to creating a sense of community among the parents. On the contrary, few directors displayed any interest in building social capital for its own sake. Like the rest of us, they were busy; they had a centre to run.

Instead, social capital typically emerged when directors were trying to accomplish some other task, one that gave parents opportunities to interact or incentives to cooperate. For example, many directors believed strongly that children should be exposed to zoos, museums, libraries, children’s parks and farms. But trips to these locations require many more adults than are needed in the classroom, to prevent children from sticking their hands in monkey cages, wandering off in parks or slipping into ponds at apple-picking expeditions. Since hiring more staff for these occasions was costly, the centres needed parents to attend. No parent volunteers, no field trips. Centres needed volunteers for other activities, too, such as sanding and painting playgrounds at the end of the year, contributing food for various ceremonies and raising money to keep tuition fees moderate. In some centres in low-income neighbourhoods, mothers were expected either to raise a certain amount over the course of the year – usually about US$300 – or pay it out of pocket. To avoid paying the fee, parents had to volunteer for group fundraising activities, such as selling baked goods or holding raffles.
 
All of these activities – field trips, clean-ups, ceremonies and raffles – required interaction and socialisation with others; they obliged parents to meet, talk, exchange phone numbers, arrange schedules and get organised. As a result, the centres that imposed greater demands on parents provided opportunities and incentives that, over the course of weeks and months, stimulated the formation of social capital.

So, organisations can generate social capital.  Indeed, organisational behaviour is crucial to the overall level of social capital in a society.  But the degree to which organisations act as social capital generators is a function not of the organisations’s commitment to social capital per se (forget engagement for engagement’s sake) but of its attempt to provide a better service through engaging citizens in co-producing that service.

It’s as obvious as it is powerful. And as austerity means that more and more existing and potential services rely on citizen engagement and participation this research offers concrete reasons: (a) to hope that to some extent austerity might generate new social capital and (b) to explore how we must change organisational cultures and incentives to enable managers and front line workers to engage citizens as co-producers of public value.

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13 Comments on The best way to generate social capital – by accident

  1. Robyn Scott on Wed, 22nd Sep 2010 11:04 am

    2. Really interesting post, thank you.

    We’ve seen exactly this effect with charity, Mothers for All, of which I’m a founder. Mothers for All teaches income generation skills to the women who care for AIDS orphans in Southern Africa. Our core activity is training the women to produce recycled jewelery. The women meet regularly in groups of no more than 6, to learn and work. This has produced a powerful attendant benefit in the form of friendships and creative collaboration. As the research you quote suggests, often the catalyst for this is a problem. For example some of the women are less skilled than others, but over time those more adept help those less so with difficult parts of the craft – so every woman has some jewelery to sell. This has strengthened friendships, self-confidence and creative thinking around associated projects within the organisation. (mothersforall.org)

  2. Charlotte Alldritt on Wed, 22nd Sep 2010 11:46 am

    3. I like this example of ‘social productivity’ (see Commission on 2020 Public Services), particularly because it challenges the view that low income families are less able to engage with public services and their communities for lack of the time and energy enjoyed by the middle classes.

  3. How to create social productivity – think outside the organisational box « The 2020 Public Services Trust Blog on Wed, 22nd Sep 2010 12:07 pm

    4. [...] Matthew Taylor’s blog on social capital this morning is a good counterexample to the myth that low income families are less able to engage with public services and their communities for lack of the time and energy enjoyed by the middle classes. [...]

  4. henry on Wed, 22nd Sep 2010 1:43 pm

    5. this is v interesting. guess there will be a strong element of loss aversion here too. when i was growing up in gateshead my local park was a tip, and now it looks great- lots of council money been put in, and a commitment to improve the public realm for everyone in a very socially mixed area (one very positive element of universalism?…). There will be no appetite for a return to dog poo and graffiti from anyone (across the income spectrum) , so if the imperative is on citizens to collaborate and take ownership of resources like this, then i think that in lots of cases we will do it.

    the question then becomes- what is government then asking citizen to actually do? once you get into thinking about the jobs that need doing and the decisions that must be made about that park, to me it becomes a no brainer that the state (in whatever guise) has a really important and ongoing role. if the labour (or even lib dem) leadership were looking for a way to engage constructively with the big society, then this is surely the kind of area they should be getting into .

  5. Michael Cayley on Wed, 22nd Sep 2010 2:10 pm

    6. I wonder what is the greater factor of the two intertwined here: co-production or volunteering.

    I suppose it is difficult to separate these factors.

    Though all typical workplaces involve co-production. Indeed all societies do.

    Does this study that volunteering results in significantly greater increase in social capital than simply co-producing?

  6. Ian CHRISTIE on Wed, 22nd Sep 2010 4:00 pm

    7. Very interesting.
    There is evidence to back this up on a large scale from the data on growth and decline in religious denominations and sects. Overall, those that make the most demands on their local congregations seem to do better in recruitment and retention than do the more tepid and undemanding ones.
    Part of the explanation may be that more demands on voluntary effort mean that you see that work as more meaningful, and that the investment made produces mutually reinforcing effects among participants.

    A related point: the quickest way to generate community spirit and cooperation in a locality is to pose some threat to it, eg a new waste dump or nuclear power plant. This creates a need for rapid learning, mobilisation of all available skills, and a focus on collaborating for what is perceived to be a common good.

  7. Sally Gimson on Wed, 22nd Sep 2010 5:18 pm

    8. But this happens in primary schools all over Britain including the one my children go to.

    School trips can’t happen without parents coming too to help supervise. Parents of all social classes run the Christmas fair, the summer barbeque, bring food for international evenings, act as class reps, circulate telephone lists for the class. It builds huge social capital though the cliques and gossip at the school gate can be horrendous.

    But all this stops at secondary school when children don’t want their parents involved in their social lives and although some keen parents continue to try and keep the PTA going and organise quiz evenings to raise money for the school it is more difficult.

  8. Michael Parker on Wed, 22nd Sep 2010 9:53 pm

    9. I used to work for a sport national governing body. One club had opened a new boathouse using funds awarded when the lottery first started and had plenty of cash. The step change in the quality of facilities was massive, and there was a big capacity increase. As a result they were able to run courses for beginners and had a completely new set of members. As they expanded, the captain – who had no other involvement with the beginners – started to attend the final session of the course. He would congratulate participants on completing the course and hope that they would carry on in the sport and now pay for a membership. But he explained that the club wasn’t a private gym:all members were expected to volunteer in some way, either with expert knowledge (coaching, accounts, legal, bar management) or simple time (at the spring clean, or running a party).

    Because everyone in the club had wanted to make the most of the new facility, everyone – including existing members – bought in to this. It remains a great club and is now immensely successful and oversubscribed.

    But this model is hard to export. Another club – in their own building but with spare capacity for beginners – tried to adopt the same approach. The existing members wouldn’t buy it. They’d been used to just turning up, participating, and leaving someone else to sort everything out. So it wasn’t fair to ask the new participants to help, as they could see the veterans treating the place badly.

    I’ve seen this repeated in other clubs when something as basic as a new shower has been put into the changing rooms and everyone’s been asked to clean it after use. Everyone sees the new start, enough people commit the social capital, and the virtuous circle begins.

    As Ian says in his comment, a threat can have the same effect. But to sum up my point: there has to be some sort of step change. Otherwise virtuous circles get drowned out.

  9. Brenton Holmes on Thu, 23rd Sep 2010 8:55 am

    10. Sounds like obliquity at work.

  10. carl allen on Thu, 23rd Sep 2010 4:22 pm

    11. In regenerating the local area I lived in, we deliberately created lots of loose opportunities for residents to interact … ran the nursery to a later hour on Fridays and had chefs of diverse cuisines delivering one hour cooking sessions/ redid the local community centre (quite cheaply) so four a side football was played indoors 6 times a week between 6-10 p.m, and we had all ages of players coming for the 15 minute sessions. Ended up with a mini league and annual matches between different age groups/ ran annual free summer camps by the sea or in the countryside for 4 weeks … catch was that the children had a behaviour and home-work contract with their schools/opened a DIY workshop for adults on evenings teaching masonry, welding, carpentry and plumbing … the area had many squatters who built their own homes over a period of years … ended up with a very high self-employment and employment rate/

    These outcomes are not accidental. But it did require foresight and we were mostly a group of young local residents who were capable and had a well developed sense of social capital that we could run the area as masters of our own destiny … lords as some described us.

    There was one key precursor … an older mentor who brought us together and stayed with us for some years in ever decreasing periods of time.

  11. Why many approaches to building social capital probably won’t work « on Fri, 24th Sep 2010 10:54 pm

    12. [...] organization.  As Matthew Taylor puts it, the best way to build social capital may be “by accident.”  See also commentary in the Social Capital [...]

  12. News clips – Tuesday 28 September 2010 | CSSA news & research on Tue, 28th Sep 2010 5:31 am

    13. [...] The best way to generate social capital – by accident [...]

  13. Trevor on Fri, 1st Oct 2010 3:33 pm

    14. Ideas around organisations generating social capital, and services relying on citizen engagement/participation are limited in many settings.

    At the charitable provider of residential and home care services for people with Learning Disabilities and dementia where I work, Councils are telling us to cut our costs by 5% each year for 5 years. The result: plans to phase out client annual holidays, day care activities and trips out, and reduce staff wages, sick pay and leave allowance.

    These individuals generally do not have active champions, like mothers/parents in the research you cite.

    Encouraging volunteers in health and social care is fine – but it is of limited use in many settings. For all the necessary debate about alternative models of public services that reduce costs, lets spend as much time on looking at properly measuring the impact of public service cuts on the vulnerable in society.

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