Measuring the Bridging Nature of Voluntary Organizations

The Importance of Association Size

Bibliographic Data

ID2321767
AuthorsH Coffe (0000-0002-0020-0227, Utrecht University), Benny Geys (0000-0003-4524-1820, WZB Berlin Social Science Center)
Year2008
Volume42
Issue2
Pages357-369
Publication date2008-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-0385 • E-ISSN: 1469-8684
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0038038507087359
OpenAlexW3125469067
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited30

Recently, a distinction between bridging and bonding networks has been made in the social capital literature. Bridging groups are often expected to have greater effects on democratic norm development and to generate more positive externalities on society than bonding networks. To allow application of these theoretical constructs in practice, however, an adequate measurement of bridging versus bonding networks is crucial. One approach builds on connections between voluntary associations through individuals with multiple memberships. However, simply counting the number of members' additional memberships in other associations, as in previous work, is inappropriate. Indeed, we illustrate that this is biased towards finding that large associations are more bonding.We then propose a technique to alleviate this bias and illustrate that the proposed correction is crucial to avoid erroneous conclusions in tests of the hypothesis that membership in bridging or bonding associations is differently related to individuals' civic attitudes

Association (psychology) · Bridging (networking) · Economics · Management · Political science · Social capital · Social science · Sociology · Turnover · Voluntary association · Computer Science · Law · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics · Social Capital and Networks · Social Psychology

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