A Study On Virtual Social Capital Of Enterprise Organization

Theoretically, this thesis reviews the existing achievement of the social capital theory and its empirical study, and makes a synthesis and comment of the social capital theory while valuing its potential new space. Due to the fact that internet had constructed a virtual construction, this thesis builds a new concept as virtual social capital, analyzes three of its key factors as, 'first virtual impression' 'virtual communications' and 'trust' and puts forward its basic hypotheses. This research is initialing to work on the following contents: first, the existing form and basis of virtual social capital, which is the new form of social capital; second, what is the company's first virtual impression and its impact on virtualsocial capital of enterprise organization; third, a study on three elements------the first virtualimpression, virtual communication and trust, which impact on the process of virtual social capital's construction, accumulation and maintenance. The thesis focus on the importance of the third party trust especially and still makes a close study of how these three elements can make the virtual social capital transfer to the real social capital; four, for a company, the role played by virtual social capital differ from an individual, the organizational research will be preferred in this study.Methodologically, this thesis takes J company, a private-owned trading company as the case study object by using the methods of in-depth interview and involved observation, and arrives at four conclusions in the following:First, the virtual social capital of J company can be divided by two parts, which are the virtual social capital formed inside the company and the other part which formed outside the company, differed to each other in their performing way. Successful communication, cooperation and those criteria contracted in common will upgrade the trust level and be beneficial for the virtual social capital to become real.Second, the virtual platform has a comparatively low credit. So the first virtual impression should play an important role in building up the primeval virtual trust or fictive trust as the media for the two parts which are searching for the resources. For a company, by controlling the speaking right, receiving the public praise from its companions and a formal registered identity will build up a good first virtual impression. Third, three elements------the first virtual impression, virtual communication (outsideand inside the organization) and trust are employed in the process of the establishment, accumulation and maintenance of the virtual social capital. The first virtual impression works better inside the company than the outside and in low cost; the virtual communication may strengthen the former one and be beneficial for the promotion of the trust level. The third party trust is the key factor to make the virtual social capital become real.Fourth, an individual is easier to employ the virtual social capital in the inside communication as cross department communication than cross level communication, which is not distinctively in its role. Exist of virtual social capital itself is a telling of the transferring of the administrative methods because a company which adopts a compressed management has more chances to exercise the virtual social capital. In the case study, appearance of the virtual social capital is found to be a accelerated factor to speed up the fallen of the pyramidal way of management.To sum up, as an exploring research of the social capital theory under the background of information times, this paper emphasizes particularly on the enlargement of the connotation and extension of the social capital theory and constructs the concept as virtual social capital; methodologically, by the case study of the enterprise organization, which is an energetic study object, makes the study of this theory have a realistic meaning.