Strategic Social Capital Building in the Nigerian Medium-sized Enterprises (MEs): The Impact of Industry Specialisation

Abstract

The study examined the impact of industry specialisation on strategic Social Capital Building (SCB) among the Nigerian Medium-sized firms. We hypothesised that organisational/industry specialisation has no impact on strategic SCB, and that indicators of organisational social capital building are not industry specific. A survey of 449 HR practitioners from seven sub-sectors of Nigerian economy was undertaken and data collected was subjected to regression and correlation analysis as well as descriptive statistics in testing the formulated hypotheses. Industry specialisation was measured using the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) 2014 sector classification; whilst strategic social capital building was measured using Likert-scale questionnaire that was developed based on the indicators of Organisational Social Capital Building (OSCB). Study results suggest a strong variation in strategic social capital building from one industry specialisation to the other. The study also found that HR practitioners in education and health and social work sectors have positive attitude towards all the seven indicators of OSCB and are more likely to use recruitment/selection and training/development functions to build OSC for their firms.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n3p163