Social Capital Theory and Four Factors of Organizational Improvement

Interesting research entitled Social Capital in Human Service/Child Welfare Organizations: Implications for Work Motivation, Job Satisfaction, Innovation, and Quality by Salvador Montana helps shed light on how Social Capital Theory explains organizational performance through the factors of innovation, satisfaction, motivation and quality. Such research is limited in its causality and accurate terms of measurement but does create higher levels of understanding that focuses on how group values can generate higher levels of performance.

Four thousand and six participant surveys were retrieved from human service industry workers in Texas. The age of participants varied and the education level of the workers ranged from high school to graduate degrees. The work environment was considered bureaucratic with clear lines of authority and top-to-bottom type management. The environment didn't appear to offer clear opportunities for employee based environmental improvement.

"The purpose of this study is to explore ways public human service organization can improve the provision of services they provide to the public (Montana, 2006, pg. 7)." The study creates a backdrop explanation of how even in large governmental organizations there is the possibility of improving the services offered through proper socialization efforts. Furthermore, it lends credibility to the factors of innovation, motivation and satisfaction having significant influence on performance improvement as postulated by me-conomics (the socialized self within an economic system).

According to the theoretical model proposed by the researcher there are four dimensions of social capital: 

Social Capital

1.) Structural Dimension: Network Ties, Network Configuration, Appropriable Organization

2.) Rational Dimension: Trust, Norms, Values, Identification

3.) Cognitive Dimension: Shared language, codes and narratives.

4.) Social Knowledge: Exchange and Recombination, Explicit and Implicit Knowledge.

Each of these dimensions is theorized to lead to innovation, satisfaction, motivation, and quality. The eventual result of these four factors would theoretically result in improved organizational performance within the bureaucratic human service industry. The study attempted to see if these four characteristics lent support to the model. The study did not seek to find causality between the characteristics but instead attempted to find significant associations.

The results of the study indicated that there was a strong correlation between normative factors linked to social capital which include information, knowledge, networks, trust, goal setting, group cohesion and coordination toward group goals. These social and normative factors had influence on innovation and satisfaction to a stronger degree and a weaker association with motivation and quality. The weakest association was with quality leaving this as a possible extra variable without strong influence and a minimal connection to the other three.

The researcher concludes that findings of the multiple regression analysis indicated that social capital has the greatest predictive strength on innovation, motivation and satisfaction. In essence when the culture and conditions of the organization are set to the right tone an organization can improve upon these four variables. It is the social group that reinforces these expectations and behaviors and leads to higher levels of performance. It is through this socialized and organizational learning process that companies can improve overall performance even in bureaucratic institutions such as child welfare organizations.

The author contends that even though Social Capital Theory has been around for some time it has limited research because it is strongly conceptual and abstract without strong ability to measure multiple factors for correlation. Minimal research has been associated with larger populations but not strongly focused in the organization. Valid measures have been difficult to find and that such concepts will need to be conducted over a larger spread of time through multiple researchers. The author further indicates that the highly conceptual nature of the variables will need to be better defined before significant measurements can be taken to improve organizational performance through such a lens.

Montana, S. (2006). Social Capital in Human Service/Child Welfare Organizations: Implications forWork Motivation, Job Satisfaction, Innovation, and Quality (Doctoral Dissertation). The University of Texas at Austin. Retrieved January 23, 2013 from ProQuest.

Motivation and Innovation: Pro-Social Problem Solving

The nature of work and the organization is changing. As this work becomes dynamic, uncertain, knowledge orientated, and ever adjusting it will rely more heavily on creative ideas of employees (George, 2007). Intrinsic motivation and innovation have important associations that should not be overlooked by organizational researchers. It is through this internal motivation that new ideas and concepts become born through associating and connecting new information in unique ways to solve larger problems.

Intrinsic motivation refers to the desire to expend effort based upon one's interests and enjoyment of the tasks being performed (Ryan & Deci, 2000). It is an internal desire for self-fulfillment, development, and accomplishment outside of the realm of extrinsic rewards. In history it was the desire of these intrinsically motivated and creative individuals that changed the nature of industry, methodology and even life by bringing forward ground breaking ideas and concepts.

Intrinsic motivation is believed to enhance creativity through positive affect, cognitive flexibility, persistence, and risk taking (Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). Each of these concepts are necessary in order to guide an intrinsically motivated person to higher levels of idea generation, analysis, and eventual solution. Motivated Information Processing Theory indicates that motivations shape the cognitive processes, the selective information they are aware of, how they encode information, what information they will remember in order to solve novel problems (Kunda, 190).

Through cognitive flexibility employees are able to engage in pro-social behavior that encourages the development of new ideas. When employees take the perspective of the "other" they are more likely to develop useful solutions to a wider group of people (Mohrman, Gibson, & Mohram, 2001).  It is this pro-social behavior which encourages them to solve problems in ways that appeal to others (De Drue, Weingart, & Kwon, 2000). Through the perception and perspective of solving problems through customers, managers, employees, and shareholders vantage points can a person find solutions that fulfill the needs of and satisfy the desires of larger groups creating higher levels of creative utility.

There are a number of criteria for motivation to be successful in creating innovation. Positive affectivity stimulates creativity by broadening the range of cognitive information, expanding the scope of attention for obtaining information and ideas, and creating flexibility for identifying patterns and association between complex ideas (Amabil, Barsade, Mueller & Straw, 2005). It is the ability to move out to wider concepts and environmental facts that allow a person to reconnect information in new ways to solve complex problems. In order for this to happen one must display an "open mindedness" to new thoughts and ways of perceiving the environment.


Innovation and internal satisfaction mix with self-confidence to maintain task persistence. Through Self-Determination Theory it is the fostering of confidence and interest that intrinsic motivation encourages employees to maintain effort on challenging, complex and unfamiliar tasks (Gagne & Deci, 2005). Moving into the "unknown" is not easy for many employees. Without a belief in one's abilities there will be a lack of confidence that such activities will bear fruit or have a positive outcome.


The beauty of internal motivation is that when it develops into a pro-social context it expands its potential solutions to have the largest possible impact. Psychological research has show that such pro-social behavior in internally motivated and creative individuals push for solutions that impact multiple-generations (McAdams & de St. Aubin, 1992). The wider the impact the more problems its solves for people and the more financial and social worth it is to the organization or a nation.


According to a study of military personnel, water department employees, and in-house laboratory manipulation conducted by Grant and Berry it was found that high intrinsic motivation with pro-social behavior created higher levels of creativity, perspective taking, perceived choice, task interest and pro-social behavior than any other combination levels of high/low intrinsic motivation with high/low levels of pro-social behavior (2011). The main findings of the study indicate that intrinsic motivation is more successful in developing creativity when individuals are socially motivated to take the perspective of others and use innovation to solve problems.

Through the motivational, innovation is developed. It has important social underpinnings associated employee satisfaction and social group dynamics. As employees master skills, gain new information about their environment, and explore the wider social context of their work they use their higher levels of motivation and self-efficacy to complete complex and unfamiliar tasks.  It is through the encouragement of innovation, employee satisfaction, and motivation that organizations can further the development of new lines of revenue and social success.

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Goal Setting and Motivated Behavior in the Workplace

Goal directed behavior exists within the motivational aspirations of the employee. Nearly all behavior is seen as having some goal or objective that is striving to be fulfilled. Focused goal directed behavior is not driven by environmental conditioning or instinct alone (Locke, 1997). Such behavior must be made through the free choice of options and turned from thoughts into actions. It has a specific goal outcome that employee hopes to achieve by putting forth the energy into a strategy that finally reaches its desired outcome.

Employees will set all types of goals throughout their entire spectrum of influence. Management's job is to help employees ensure that those goals that pertain to the workplace are appropriate for both the employer and employee. Through such directed goals organizations can seek higher levels of alignment between employee actions and organizational needs. True alignment exists when the totality of employee goals further foster the strategic objectives of the organization.

There are three major theories management can use to encourage higher levels of goal alignment and performance in organizations. According to Lock the theories include Management by Objectives, Human Relations and Valence-Instrumentality-Expectancy (VIE) Theory and Job Enrichment and Organizational Behavior Modification (OB Mod)(Locke, 1978). They are as follows:

1.) Management by Objectives (MBO): Under this theory each employee works toward the fulfillment of tasks each day (Taylor, 1911). Through coaching, counseling and oversight employees can be encouraged to meet targeted objectives. As employees are often motivated by rewards the piecemeal rate was developed.

2.) Valence-Instrumentality-Expectancy (VIE) Theory: Victor Vroom believed that valence, expectancy, and instrumentality lead to employees avoiding pain and moving toward motivational pleasure (Vroom, 1964). People exert effort to complete tasks that have workplace outcomes. Valence can be described as the need, expectancy as the expected outcome and instrumentality is the workplace result/reward. Later work includes task/goal setting to achieve outcomes.

3.) Cognitive Growth and OB Mod: Maslow and Herzberg believed that workers have a need to develop a genuine sense of self-worth (Herzberg, 1966). Through appropriate goal setting, feedback, and job enrichment employees can continue to expand their abilities and skill which leads to feelings of self-worth. The theory later included specific goal setting to help employees move in the right direction for self-evaluation.

Each of these theories provide some level of insight into the motivational aspects of behavior within the workplace. It is necessary for employees to first want to achieve some objective and then put their effort toward the achievement of that objective. Each of the theories eventual included goal setting as a method of directing employees along a particular path.


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The Leading Theories of Employee Motivation

Job motivation spawns from a variety of employee interests and desires. Motivation comes from the personal desires of the individual but is fostered through organizational pathways. There are many different ways of defining motivation but often motivation includes all reasons why a person chooses to act in a certain manner (Adair, 2006). The most common theories offer some level of insight into motivational factors that lead to higher levels of performance.

It is often beneficial to view these various common motivational theories to see a wider picture of the running vantage points and approaches to understanding employees behavior. Each motivational theory has their own particular approach that ranges from group dynamics to fulfillment of lifelong needs. Some are psychological by nature while others look at the organization and its environment as factors.

Maslow Hierarchy of Needs: Through this theory the needs of individuals progress through different stages based upon their development. People move through physiological needs, security and safety, social needs, self-esteem and self-actualization. As each person accomplishes some need the next one takes precedence.

Frederick Herzberg's Two Factors Theory: In this theory there are primarily two factors of satisfied and dissatisfied. Satisfaction often came through the context of work functions while dissatisfaction was often a result of the organizational dynamics. Motivation came through the execution of work tasks while the organizational factors were seen as context.

Theory X and Theory Y: In such a theory the X employee has a low level of motivation and the Y is engaged in the work task. The X employee does not feel as though the should make particular demands on them while the Y employee feels that such demands are a normal part of work life. X employee must often be coerced while Y employees have a more natural tendency to engage the work tasks.

The Expectancy Theory: Developed by Vroom (1964) and Porter & Lawler (1968) as a way of understanding individual motivations within the workplace. According to the theory each employee has expectancies of their work environment. When the expectancies are in match with work performance and clear rewards from the environment the employee will create motivation.

The Goal Setting Theory: The theory helps explain that setting goals and having appropriate feedback creates higher levels of motivation (Latham and Locke, 1979). Organizations can partner with individuals to help them set goals that are acceptable to the company and continue to give them accurate performance feedback throughout employees fulfillment of these desires.

Equity Theory: The equity theory indicates that motivation is a result of how people are treated when compared to others. In this theory people are more motivated when there is a perception of fairness and just treatment of everyone.

The Group Culture Theory: It is important to consider the factors that motivate an entire group that may have needs which are distinctly different from those of the individual. Under this theory the personality of a group and their needs should be considered as a motivational factor (Adair, 2006).


Adair, J. (2006). Leadership and motivation. The fifty-fifty rule and the eight key principles of motivating others. Kogan Page, London and Philadelphia.

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Porter, L. & Lawler, E. (1968). Managerial Attitudes and Performance. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, Inc.

Vroom, V. (1964) Work and Motivation. New York: McGraw Hill.

The Components of Employee Motivation and Organizational Success

At the center of any successful organization rests the employees that take the orders, assemble the products, and sell the goods. Before companies can achieve success they should ensure employees are committed and engaged with the organization and its objectives. Where well managed and committed employees are an asset, a poorly managed company with a lack of employee commitment will ultimately lead to decline. Through the development and encouragement of employee effort does the unique synergy exist in   organizations that allow for higher levels of operational savings and environmental capitalization. The components of this motivation are discussed through this article.

Motivation is derived from the word "motivate" which means to push, move, or influence the environment to achieve some objective (Kalimullah et al, 2010). Motivation can also be seen as the process by which behavior obtains a results, attempts to complete an objective and continues to push forward. It still may further be seen as an internal drive that pushes to fulfill some need (Bedeian, 1993).

Employee motivation is one of the main functions of management that is derived through the policies and procedures of an organization (Shadare et al, 2009). Through the need to accomplish some goal or find a path to personal development an employee will scan their work environment to put their skills, knowledge and abilities to the most appropriate use. Such excited employees are seeking ways to make their work more interesting and efficient and therefore organizations should foster the effort in order to make the company more successful (Kalimullah et al, 2010).

Through the capitalization on employee motivation an organization can meet customer demands, lower costs, and change to meet environmental challenges. Organizational effectiveness is the efficient process of turning inputs to outputs (Matthew et al, 2005). The more efficiently the organization is run through motivating processes the more effective is the process of converting the organizational factors into viable products or services. This is accomplished through the minds and bodies of workers that engage in and make micro and macro decisions throughout the process.

The Legitimacy Model views organizational effectiveness as “component preferences for performance and natural limitations on performance from an external environmental perspective” (Zammuto.R.F,
1982). In other words, while reviewing an organization it is possible to determine its effectiveness by understanding employees' preferences for performance and the limitations these employees have in utilizing these pathways. If road blocks are removed employees will put their effort toward those designed pathways that have the most chances of success.

Leadership is an essential component of motivation. Through employee trust of management they will believe that the leadership function of the organization will fulfill their explicit and implicit promises (Baldoni.J, 2005). Thus leadership and trust in management is necessary if employees are to make that decision to put forward effort into the organizational pathways. The leadership function and the labor function raise each other to higher levels of motivation and morality in a synergistic manner that furthers market interests (Rukhmani.K, 2010).

The essential components of employee motivation rely in trust, rewards, decision making, empowerment, information and group expectations (Baldoni.J, 2005; Yazdani,B.O. et al, 2011; Hassan et al, 2011; Adeyinka et al, 2007; Brewer et al, 2000). When these components work in tandem an environment can be more aligned to the needs of the employees and thus produce more meaningful results for the organization. Investors should ensure their management team are working to continually align their organizations to foster these motivational components to meet environmental needs.

Through a review of a number of studies it has been found that a various components contribute to the development of motivation within the organization:

 ...the factors that enhance employee motivation are fair pay, incentives, special allowances, fringe benefits, leadership, encouragement, trust, respect, joint decision making, quality of supervision, adequate working relationships, appreciation, chances for growth, loyalty of organization, identification and fulfillment of their needs, recognition, empowerment, inspiration, importance attached to their job, safe working conditions, training and information availability and communication to perform actions (Manzoor, 2011).

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Six Motivational Potentials Employers Should Consider

Iron Workers Noon Time

Job motivation is an important component for worker progression and organizational development. Motivation takes many forms but is often fostered through the conduit of organizational objectives. Employees seeking needs attainment search through their environments in order to find appropriate paths that create the most likely outcomes. Organizations that can create the right mechanisms for motivational expression are more likely to foster the aspirations of their employees.

Motivational potentials is a concept that entails creating pathways whereby employee motivation can meet beneficial outcomes. In organizations where there are few motivational potentials, and appropriate pathways, it is doubtful employees will come to the conclusion that additional work will result in some level of reward. Without the desire, the pathway, and the reward the employee will continue to treat work as just another mundane task to engage in throughout the day in order to maintain their lifestyle.

Motivational potentials can include the following (Heckhausen & Rheinburg, 1980):

1.) Clearly defined areas of responsibility.
2.) Employees conception of optimal work-results and appropriate measures to reach them.
3.) Consideration of employees' positive experiences with similar work-tasks.
4.) Importance of work-results for sub-dominant goals.
5.) Transparent and performance-oriented incentive systems.
6.) Opportunity of choosing between alternative extrinsic rewards.

Employees seek to own the work and its results, appropriate feedback of performance, have positive work experiences, fulfill multiple goals, trustworthy incentive programs, and meaningfulness of the rewards. To employees the environment must be worthy of their effort and there need to have appropriate opportunities to achieve once that effort is put forward. The compensation structure defines how much and what kind of effort is required for a reward.

Let us assume that Ben is an employee who desires to engage his work environment. However, his supervisor practices control versus empowerment and Ben cannot find an appropriate path to engage his work environment. The extra effort he puts forward is either unnoticed or unfairly capitalized on by his supervisor. After a few attempts at trying to benefit himself through the organization he either gives up or seeks other opportunities for employment. Ben may stay within his position for a while but is unlikely to produce much as he intuitively knows that no benefit can be obtained by offering ideas or working harder.

Ben desires to know what his responsibilities are, wants to know what is considered "strong work", wants to enjoy the tasks he does, wants to enhance his market worth, desires to understand precisely how someone receives additional compensation, and wants a choice in the type of reward he receives. If his supervisor is not transparent with Ben it is unlikely he will trust his supervisor or his workplace. He will not be willing to put forth much effort without a dynamic change to the environment. 

There are organizations that practice the assumption that workers must be controlled and discipline is an appropriate driving force to keep employees productive. Such behavior often encourages compliance but will rarely produce anything beyond low standards of productivity and engagement. Creating an appropriate atmosphere for successful alignment of personal goals with that of the organization can help provide opportunities for motivated workers to reengage their environment. In this century employees are expected to be more than a part in the machinery and should be shown the path forward. Great supervisors and managers can effectively communicate the expectations and follow through with them when they are achieved.

Heckhausen, H. & Rheinburg, F. (1980). Learning motivation in education, newly considered. Unterrichtswissenschaft, 1. pp. 7-47.

Enablers Produce Organizational Results

Enablers are an asset to any workplace that seeks to solve market problems and continue to progress through environmental difficulties. People whom we consider to be enablers use multiple resources from the workplace in order to develop both the organization and themselves. They have the amazing ability to maintain motivation and capitalize on resources if given an opportunity to succeed.

Enablers are able to connect resources to find solutions that help in encouraging business imperatives. At times they utilize the skills of other people and other times they use existing resources in unique and new methods. The skill of the enabler is in the encouragement of higher levels of organizational attainment.

Enablers achieve results for organizations, employees and society (Ehrlich, 2006). Their approaches are divided into 1.) Enablers that produce 2.) Results.

Enabling Factors:

-leadership
-people
-policy and strategy
-processes

Result Factors:

-people results
-customer results
-society results
-key performance results

Enablers and their results contribute to innovation and learning within organizations. Like a cyclical process the use of the enabler factors produce beneficial results that are tied to the process of learning. Understanding how the use of each component produces a specific result helps such decision makers to create ever higher levels of organizational alignment. Enablers continue to learn as they pull resources together and observe the end results which affords them increasing skills in managing the workplace.

Let us take an example that may tie the concept together. An enabler needs to solve some organizational problem. He/She uses leadership, people within the organization, policies, strategy, and processes to achieve specific results that improve upon products or services with people, customers, society or predefined goals. Each time an enabler tries to pull together various factors to produce specific results he/she learns how the components work together. With each subsequent trial the learning process continues. 

An enabler is a person who has the motivation and desire to solve problems within an organization. This makes the enabler unique when compared to many colleagues who prefer to maintain minimal performance standards. You can determine who is an enabler by their desire to continue to think about and develop methods of solving organizational problems.

Ehrlich, C. (2006). The EFQM-Model and work motivation. Total Quality Management, 17 (2).