Thursday, 24 September 2009

Shoe horn engagement

You know what a shoe horn is? It's a tool for helping you fit into a shoe that's just a bit too tight.

For the last two weeks, I've been trying to shoe horn the phenomenon of engagement into Nahapiet and Ghoshal's framework of three dimensions of social capital. And it doesn't quite fit, or it's too tight. Their framework includes trust, and that seems to be an aspect of engagement. It's aspects of the relational dimension that seem most relevant.

But I can't quite work out how to adapt their diagram to include engagement. Somehow social capital drives and includes engagement, and that helps the combination and exchange of intellectual capital, so increases value. That's my hypothesis anyhow.

But perhaps I shouldn't be trying to use a shoe horn, because if a shoe doesn't fit, then it hurts.

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