Social Capital, Organizations, and Disasters: Theoretical Insights from Four Communities

Social capital, especially among community organizations, is central to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency’s “Whole Community Approach” for disaster resiliency, in which four of the six resiliency themes focus on social capital. Organizational social capital benefits the individual organizations and produces collective benefits for the whole network, including knowledge creation and sharing, generating financial resources, and creating innovations (Cohen and Prusak 2001; Lesser 2000; Reagans and McEvily 2003). Further, it affects efficiency and effectiveness important to social service and nongovernmental organizations (Provan et al. 2005). In disaster settings, social capital among emergency management organizations fosters more efficient response (Kapucu 2006; Kapucu et al.2010; Varda et al. 2009).

Yet, social capital research on organizations in disasters focuses heavily on emergency management agencies. Less research includes non-disaster response organizations use of networks for disaster situations (Boerfel, Lai, and Chewning 2010). In this paper, I describe theoretical insights for organizational theory and disaster theory drawn from case study research on social capital among community organizations in four communities. The case studies were all completed between 2012 and 2013 and include two communities that had recent disasters and two communities that have not. Further, three are rural (populations less than 50,000) and one is a small urban area (population 270,000). Based on interviews with nonprofit, emergency management, religious, and social service organizations, I discuss the benefits and difficulties of using social capital for community disaster response and recovery. Disasters present both obstacles and opportunities for the survival and growth of community organizations. Further, I argue that how organizations interact in networks, including legal and mission-related struggles, is key to understanding social capital for community disaster resilience. My results address how the “Whole Community” is practiced as well as contribute to organizational theory about social capital’s effect on organizational and community outcomes.