Methodology of Social Capital Research and Its Empirical Testing

The paper tackles the challenging research problem of measuring social capital as well as its increase and structure. It sets out by demonstrating the significance of the research problem, the definition of social capital and formulating research objectives and hypotheses. The theoretical part proposes research methods and a unique approach to formulating and operationalizing the notion of social capital. The authors have developed a multidimentional method of measuring social capital and test it empirically together with the hypotheses. The empirical part presents the outcomes of a survey of 8 counties of the and 4 communities (Wielkopolska Region) carried out between 2010 and 2011. The authors have measured and compared the assessments of social capital across respondent groups, defined gaps, optimized benchmarks for social capital profiles in counties and formulated a theoretical a model for stimulating its development.