The Role of Formal and Informal Social Networks in Social Capital Acquisition: An Investigation on Women Board Directors

Abstract

This research is focused on the role of individuals in social networking in the acquisition of formal and informal network connections and the tendency to take part in unstructured groups in social capital, as it has recently been highly interested in social capital theory and social networking approach, which is regarded as based on sociometry studies. The importance of the acquisition of social capital by informal networks has been realized on the independent women's board directors working on the boards of actively traded companies of Borsa İstanbul A.Ş. By defining the relationships, ties and contacts that each women board director have, UCINET 6.0 and the Microsoft Excel program have been used to create network relations matrices and network maps. It is expected that informal network relations will provide more benefits when formal and informal networks evaluate the importance of acquiring social capital. The research proposal put forward in this study has been tested on woman board directors and this suggests that woman managers are expected to have more unregulated network relations in their career development and tendency to take part in informal groups and social capital they get.