Looking at Social Capital through Triad Structures

The concept of social capital, which has gained wide currency in the literature, examines how actors’ ties to others advantage or disadvantage them and the groups to which they belong. Two conceptually distinct types of social capital, closure and brokerage in Burt’s (2005) terms, have been identified. In this paper, we propose a method by which brokerage and closure can be distinguished using a census of patterns of ties in triads of actors. We apply this method to network data gathered on 24 non-profit organizational actors. Our findings show when a network is characterized by brokerage or closure and how that network coincides with the presence/absence of trust and reciprocity. We conclude with a discussion on the nature of nonprofits, and how the larger social context of network actors, in this case non-profits, play a role in interpreting the network structures uncovered via social network analysis.