SCBS Social Capital Benchmarking System - Profiting from Social Capital when Building Network Organisations

In knowledge economy, companies and organisations build sustainable competitive advantages not only relying on their internal intellectual capital but also on the intellectual capital of other companies, organisations and institutions and specifically on those of the cluster [Porter, 1990], microcluster or territory where the company is located. This kind of intellectual capital, basically external and of a relational nature is one of the main constituents of the networked organisation and (will be called) from now on Social Capital [Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998] because it is embedded in the social fabric (texture) of the nearby environment. SCBS (Social Capital Benchmarking System) is both a new management method and a new management tool, that identifies, audits and benchmarks the resources and capabilities or the social capital, existing in alternative cluster locations that are necessary in order to develop the specific network organisation that each particular business model requires. The system has been successfully piloted in five European enterprises.