Does Social Capital Improve Labour Productivity in Small and Medium Enterprises?

This paper carries out an empirical assessment of the relationship between social capital and labour productivity in small and medium enterprises in Italy. By means of structural equations models, the analysis investigates the effect of different aspects of the multifaceted concept of social capital. While the bonding social capital of strong family ties seems to be irrelevant, the bridging social capital of weak ties connecting friends and acquaintances is proved to exert a significant and positive influence both on labour productivity and on human development.