New Insights for Relational Capital

Abstract

Abstract: In this paper, we concentrate on relational capital, manifestation of the old adage ⠀it is not what you know but who you know⠀. We propose that in this networked world, the importance of relationships between multiple stakeholders created by key personnel and financing becomes fundamental, and hence understanding and measuring those becomes fundamental, too. Accordingly, we highlight that there is a need to go beyond social, individual or personal relationships and organizational context, as well as beyond the limitations of the dyadic (one actor to one actor) view on relationships. Hence, we are introducing the ecosystem as the context for measuring relational capital. This paper builds on a construct of ecosystemic relational capital, created for understanding and measuring the importance of relationships in the context of ecosystems. It looks at the totality of relationships both at organizational level and at individual level, measuring the structures and characteristics related to individuals, organizations as well as the ecosystem as a whole (Still et al. 2014a). We acknowledge that the initial framework emphasizes the ⠜networking capabilities⠀ element of relational capital, with less attention to the element of ⠜customer loyalty and reputation⠀, which is the motivation for building on the construct. The processes of ecosystemic relational capital are already seen to be built on the possibilities afforded by the volumes of digital data, mostly from social media, providing details on the relationships between various actors related to various regions, sectors, technologies and products. However, we propose enhancing the holistic integration for better understanding and measuring of relational capital with the application of methods of social network analysis (SNA), network visualizations and social media analytics. In this paper, we present concrete examples of the enhanced framework. At the same time, we acknowledge that there are many other avenues for obtaining novel insights for relational capital with these analytics