The relationship between Social Capital and Effectiveness of Customs Office Employees: a Case Study of Kurdistan Province of Iran (in Persian)

Social capital is a multidimensional and multilayered concept, frequently discussed in recent years in the fields of social science, economics and political science. Social capital is collective communications and social networks, facilitating the sense of cooperation and trust among the individuals in a society. Many sociologists and social science scholars believe that social capital is an important area of community development. Accordingly, this paper examines the relationship between social capital and the effectiveness of customs office employees in Kurdistan province. This is a descriptive, survey-type study. The data collection tool was a questionnaire whose copies were handed out among the participants after having been tested for its validity and reliability (through factor analysis). The statistical population of the research was customs office employees of three cities of Sanandaj, Marivan and Baneh in Kurdestan province, out of which 120 employees were selected as samples. Finally, 110 retuned questionnaires were analyzed. The results showed that there was a meaningful and direct relationship between all aspects of social capital variables (i.e. social trust, employees’ relations in the social networks, employees’ group participation and their involvement in the local community groups) and the effectiveness of customs employees. The results of the regression analysis indicated that the four dimensions of social capital explain 23.8 Percent of the variance of employees' effectiveness in the equations. Meanwhile, they indicated that employees’ group participation was the most determining factor to influence the effectiveness of employees.