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COMMENTARY
Correspondence: Tage Sndergard Kristensen, Task-Consult, stre Alle 35E, DK.3250 Gilleleje, Denmark. Tel: +45 29 70 40 12. E-mail: tsk@task-consult.dk
(Accepted 19 October 2009)
2009 the Nordic Societies of Public Health
DOI: 10.1177/1403494809354437
150
T. S. Kristensen
151
COPSOQ II [25] could be a very good operationalization of company social capital. At company level
the correlation of trust and justice is very high, so the
average score of these two scales is an obvious
measure of social capital.
In order to illustrate the type of findings in the
current projects, two simple figures are presented
below. Both figures are based on a study of the social
capital of all the elementary schools (n 12) in a
provincial municipality of Denmark. Figure 1 shows
the association between the dimension of leadership
quality and social capital. The unit of analysis is the
workplace (school), and the figure shows a perfect
correlation between the two dimensions. This finding
corresponds to the results of several other ongoing
studies. We still have not found a workplace
with discrepancy between social capital and leadership quality.
Figure 2 shows the clear association between the
average level of recognition and the social capital of
the schools. It should be emphasized that not all
associations look like this. There are very weak or no
association between social capital and average levels
of, e.g., quantitative demands and emotional
demands.
The results illustrated by the two figures are typical
for the findings in the ongoing studies of company
social capital: (1) We have found strong correlations
at workplace level with factors such as leadership,
sense of community, social support, recognition, and
predictability. (2) We have also found clear correlations with job satisfaction, commitment to the workplace, intention to stay, sickness absence, and a
number of measures of psychological well-being.
(3) We now have suggestive, but encouraging, results
on performance indicators such as productivity,
customer satisfaction, quality of services etc.
The two figures illustrate another striking feature
of these studies: the large differences in social capital
between workplaces within the same structural and
economic framework. The schools illustrated in
Figures 1 and 2 function under the same municipal
authority, the same laws and regulations, the same
economic budget, the same general agreement, and
have (approximately) the same kind of children. And
in spite of this the score for social capital varies from
50 points to almost 80! (As pointed out by Pejtersen
et al [26] a difference of 510 points makes a
difference for the employees). In other words, the
social capital differences between these schools
cannot be explained by outside structural or economic factors, which indicates that any school can
do it! So far, our research strongly suggests that a
factor of principal importance for developing high
social capital is leadership quality.
152
T. S. Kristensen
Quality of leadership
Ly
No
Sp
Sv
70
Te
So
60
Hy
Ba
Ka
50
Ro
M
40
Gr
Social capital
50
60
70
80
Figure 1. Social capital and quality of leadership at elementary schools in a Danish provincial community. Average scores on the two
COPSOQ scales. (School names are abbreviated to keep anonymity. Average scores for Danish employees are indicated with dotted lines).
Recognition
Ly
80
Te
Sp
No
So
Sv
70
Hy
Ba
DK
60
Ka
M
Ro
Gr
50
Social capital
50
60
70
80
Figure 2. Social capital and recognition at elementary schools in a Danish provincial community. Average scores on the two COPSOQ
scales. (School names are abbreviated to keep anonymity. Average scores for Danish employees are indicated with dotted lines).
153
154
T. S. Kristensen
[33]
[34]
[35]
[36]
[37]
155