What is Relationship Capital and how does it vector with Human Capital?

[Tia Carr Williams]

There are a variety of descriptors for Relationship Capital currently under scrutiny. Some perceive it as the 'value' attributed to a peer to peer exchange whilst others aggregate it as an intangible 'goodwill' element fostered by sequential exchanges that have positive outcomes.
Clearly, relationship capital is consistently at work in every human exchange and can equally be perceived as being significant in the building of personal reputation and corporate brands through the conduit of experience.

If Human Capital is orthodoxically described as 'the stock of skills and knowledge embodied in the ability to perform labor so as to produce economic value' the it would seem prudent to assume that a successful Human Capital Initiative requires a collaborative effort engaging an enterprise wide involvement, and that means everybody.

In most top down organisations, the manner of cordoning off information flow so as to coralle people into silos does little to enfranchise their 'relationship capital' building on behalf of their employee. The equation that relationship capital, duly harnessed, could deliver roi by augmenting the human capital aggregation, to me is evident, but seemingly is lost on C+ suite decision makers.

I would welcome the considered opinions of members in this regard.

[Denis W Barnard]

I'm not sure about the analogy of "stock" here. It has to be something more organic.

For instance, the broad difference between a skill and a competency is that the first implies ownership of the ability or knowledge, whereas the second defines the capability of deploying that ability / knowledge.

To say that someone has leadership qualities does not mean that they are actually using their qualities. One of the problems today is that people are sent off on courses to be trained to be Managers or Leaders, and there is an assumption that attendance bestows the ability. In theory, the organisation's knowledge base has expanded, but if that knowledge is not used, it have no value in a Human Capital context.

[Tia Carr Williams]

Denis,

True. Exposure to a short course rarely bestows a competency because it isn't modelled in context nor tracked post training. 'One hit' training exposure is simply insufficient to productively shift anybody's natural traits, where ever they are being deployed. The culture does a lot to inform a manager's engagement manner though and this has been reflected in research. Ergo, the company must embrace and nurture, model and track those 'leadership' qualities it seeks to embedd in it's managerial stock.

[Mike Shoemaker]

I'm not quite sure what the difference would be between relationship capital (a term I've never heard before) and social capital (which has been widely researched).

That said, I absolutely agree that human capital is augmented by social ties. In fact, I would say that social or relationship capital is a key component of human capital. It's putting not just what you know but who you know and what they know to work.