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Achieving Success Through Social Capital: Tapping the Hidden Resources in Your Personal and Business Networks
By Wayne Baker. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000. 238 pages, hard cover, $25.00. Reviewed by Katherine A. Karl Indiana University South Bend
In Achieving Success Through Social Capital, Wayne Baker explains why social capital is important to the success of individuals and organizations. He effectively provides readers with guidelines for analyzing the state and quality of their own social capital, then describes several strategies for building social capital at the individual and organizational levels. Woven throughout the book is the author's somewhat spiritual message regarding the appropriate use of social capital. For example, in the preface he writes: "My mission can be stated in one sentence ... to contribute to the theory and practice of a more humane society ... one in which we see ourselves as members of a vast network of interdependent connections, where we take each other's welfare into account and build relationships of mutual respect, honor, and understanding, and where we contribute to each other's human development and the fulfillment of each other's hopes and aspirations."
According to Baker, "social capital refers to the resources available in and through personal and business networks." The word social is used to emphasize that personal and business resources (for example, ideas, leads, business opportunities, financial capital, power and influence, emotional support, goodwill, trust, and cooperation) are not owned by any single person, but reside in networks of relationships. The word capital emphasizes that resources can be used to create value, achieve goals, and make contributions to the world.
When it comes to prescriptions for success, the notion that whom you know is more important than what...