IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/sustdv/v32y2024i5p5240-5258.html

The role of social capital in community development: Insights from behavioral game theory and social network analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Maiko Sakamoto

Abstract

This study examined the multifaceted nature of Social Capital (SC) in community development projects by using Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) interventions in three urban Bangladeshi slums as a case study. Despite its recognized importance, the ambiguity surrounding SC has led to mixed outcomes, necessitating a more theorized approach to quantitatively assess SC. To address this, a comprehensive methodology was developed, specifically crafted for a community development context and incorporating standard SC questions, social network analysis indices, and an adherence to social norms through behavioral game theory. The analysis revealed varied SC profiles, with one slum achieving successful community toilet management through strong reciprocal ties. The other slums faced challenges due to community division and weakened SC among key individuals. These findings underscore the necessity of tailoring interventions to community‐specific SC characteristics. The streamlined approach derived from the study provides guidance for both enhancing the effectiveness of community interventions and advancing sustainable development.

Suggested Citation

  • Maiko Sakamoto, 2024. "The role of social capital in community development: Insights from behavioral game theory and social network analysis," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 5240-5258, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:32:y:2024:i:5:p:5240-5258
    DOI: 10.1002/sd.2961
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2961
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/sd.2961?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/14otokka698nb83lk2n7bhqbo2 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Tsung-hsiu Tsai, 2008. "The impact of social capital on regional waste recycling," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(1), pages 44-55.
    3. Ligon, Ethan & Schechter, Laura, 2012. "Motives for sharing in social networks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(1), pages 13-26.
    4. Kölle, Felix & Quercia, Simone, 2021. "The influence of empirical and normative expectations on cooperation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 190(C), pages 691-703.
    5. Dean S. Karlan, 2005. "Using Experimental Economics to Measure Social Capital and Predict Financial Decisions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1688-1699, December.
    6. Chenhall, Robert H. & Hall, Matthew & Smith, David, 2010. "Social capital and management control systems: a study of a non-government organization," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 32980, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    7. Stephen Leider & Markus M. Möbius & Tanya Rosenblat & Quoc-Anh Do, 2009. "Directed Altruism and Enforced Reciprocity in Social Networks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 124(4), pages 1815-1851.
    8. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    9. repec:pri:rpdevs:gamespaper.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2010. "Why volunteer? Evidence on the role of altruism, image, and incentives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 911-920, December.
    11. Elinor Ostrom, 2000. "Collective Action and the Evolution of Social Norms," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 137-158, Summer.
    12. Andreoni, James, 1989. "Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(6), pages 1447-1458, December.
    13. Andreoni, James, 1990. "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 100(401), pages 464-477, June.
    14. Howe, E. Lance & Murphy, James J. & Gerkey, Drew & Stoddard, Olga B. & West, Colin Thor, 2023. "Sharing, social norms, and social distance: Experimental evidence from Russia and Western Alaska," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 345-358.
    15. Rubinstein, Ariel, 1979. "Equilibrium in supergames with the overtaking criterion," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 1-9, August.
    16. Villalonga-Olives, E. & Wind, T.R. & Kawachi, I., 2018. "Social capital interventions in public health: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 203-218.
    17. Bernheim, B Douglas, 1994. "A Theory of Conformity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 841-877, October.
    18. Cristina Bicchieri & Eugen Dimant, 2022. "Nudging with care: the risks and benefits of social information," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 191(3), pages 443-464, June.
    19. Forsythe Robert & Horowitz Joel L. & Savin N. E. & Sefton Martin, 1994. "Fairness in Simple Bargaining Experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 347-369, May.
    20. Aguiar, Fernando & Brañas-Garza, Pablo & Miller, Luis M., 2008. "Moral distance in dictator games," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 344-354, April.
    21. Alexi Danchev, 2005. "Social capital influence on sustainability of development (case study of Bulgaria)," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 13(1), pages 25-37.
    22. Ida Helgegren & Jennifer McConville & Graciela Landaeta & Sebastien Rauch, 2020. "Importance of internal factors for community-managed water and wastewater systems in Cochabamba, Bolivia," International Journal of Water Resources Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(6), pages 1031-1053, November.
    23. Chenhall, Robert H. & Hall, Matthew & Smith, David, 2010. "Social capital and management control systems: A study of a non-government organization," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 737-756, November.
    24. Ke He & Junbiao Zhang & Junhui Feng & Ting Hu & Lu Zhang, 2016. "The Impact of Social Capital on farmers' Willingness to Reuse Agricultural Waste for Sustainable Development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 101-108, March.
    25. Rike Stotten, 2024. "The natural domain and its social representation in the community resilience concept," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(2), pages 1458-1470, April.
    26. Hoel, Jessica B., 2015. "Heterogeneous households: A within-subject test of asymmetric information between spouses in Kenya," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 123-135.
    27. Shiell, Alan & Hawe, Penelope & Kavanagh, Shane, 2020. "Evidence suggests a need to rethink social capital and social capital interventions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 257(C).
    28. Schechter, Laura, 2007. "Traditional trust measurement and the risk confound: An experiment in rural Paraguay," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 272-292, February.
    29. Carpiano, Richard M. & Fitterer, Lisa M., 2014. "Questions of trust in health research on social capital: What aspects of personal network social capital do they measure?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 225-234.
    30. Brune, Nancy E. & Bossert, Thomas, 2009. "Building social capital in post-conflict communities: Evidence from Nicaragua," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 68(5), pages 885-893, March.
    31. Erik Christopher Simmons & Matthew Sanders, 2022. "Building sustainable communities for sustainable development: An evidence‐based behavior change intervention to reduce plastic waste and destructive fishing in Southeast Asia," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(5), pages 1018-1029, October.
    32. Godfred Addai & Jungho Suh & Douglas Bardsley & Guy Robinson & Lawrence Guodaar, 2024. "Exploring sustainable development within rural regions in Ghana: A rural web approach," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 3890-3907, August.
    33. Bodin, Örjan & Crona, Beatrice I., 2008. "Management of Natural Resources at the Community Level: Exploring the Role of Social Capital and Leadership in a Rural Fishing Community," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(12), pages 2763-2779, December.
    34. Villalonga-Olives, E. & Kawachi, I., 2017. "The dark side of social capital: A systematic review of the negative health effects of social capital," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 194(C), pages 105-127.
    35. James Andreoni & B. Douglas Bernheim, 2009. "Social Image and the 50-50 Norm: A Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Audience Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1607-1636, September.
    36. Berg Joyce & Dickhaut John & McCabe Kevin, 1995. "Trust, Reciprocity, and Social History," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 122-142, July.
    37. Salvatore di Falco & Erwin Bulte, 2011. "A Dark Side of Social Capital? Kinship, Consumption, and Savings," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(8), pages 1128-1151, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Devindi Geekiyanage & Terrence Fernando & Kaushal Keraminiyage, 2026. "Mobilising Community Engagement in Disaster Risk‐Sensitive Urban Planning: Insights From Grounded Theory and Two‐Mode Social Network Analysis," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(1), pages 41-64, February.
    2. Imre Fertő & Štefan Bojnec, 2025. "Gender Equality and Green Entrepreneurship in Farms," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(3), pages 3985-4008, June.
    3. Li, Lin & Lv, Jingyu & Ma, Lili & Ruan, Jing, 2025. "Community reciprocity promotes cooperation in a network evolutionary prisoner’s dilemma game," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 502(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Aoyagi, Keitaro & Sawada, Yasuyuki & Shoji, Masahiro, 2022. "Irrigation infrastructure and trust: Evidence from natural and lab-in-the-field experiments in rural communities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    2. Crawford, Ian & Harris, Donna, 2018. "Social interactions and the influence of “extremists”," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 238-266.
    3. Ayako Wakano & Hiroyuki Yamada & Daichi Shimamoto, 2017. "Does the Heterogeneity of Project Implementers Affect the Programme Participation of Beneficiaries?: Evidence from Rural Cambodia," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(1), pages 49-67, January.
    4. McEvily, Bill & Radzevick, Joseph R. & Weber, Roberto A., 2012. "Whom do you distrust and how much does it cost? An experiment on the measurement of trust," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 285-298.
    5. Rawadee Jarungrattanapong & Suparee Boonmanunt, 2020. "Collective action and other-regarding behavior: an assessment of games vs reality in Thailand," Environmental Economics and Policy Studies, Springer;Society for Environmental Economics and Policy Studies - SEEPS, vol. 22(4), pages 485-507, October.
    6. Binzel, Christine & Fehr, Dietmar, 2013. "Social distance and trust: Experimental evidence from a slum in Cairo," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 99-106.
    7. Dimant, Eugen, 2015. "On Peer Effects: Behavioral Contagion of (Un)Ethical Behavior and the Role of Social Identity," MPRA Paper 68732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Aoyagi, Keitaro & Sawada, Yasuyuki & Shoji, Masahiro, 2014. "Does Infrastructure Facilitate Social Capital Accumulation? Evidence from Natural and Artefactual Field Experiments in a Developing Country," Working Papers 65, JICA Research Institute.
    9. Rahul Mehrotra & Vincent Somville & Lore vandewalle, 2016. "Increasing trust in the bank to enhance savings: Experimental evidence from India," CMI Working Papers 2, CMI (Chr. Michelsen Institute), Bergen, Norway.
    10. Bašić, Zvonimir & Verrina, Eugenio, 2024. "Personal norms — and not only social norms — shape economic behavior," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 239(C).
    11. Yann Algan & Yochai Benkler & Mayo Fuster Morell & Jérôme Hergueux, 2013. "Cooperation in Peer-Production Economy: Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia," Working Papers hal-03460797, HAL.
    12. Goeschl, Timo & Jarke, Johannes, 2014. "Trust, but verify? When trustworthiness is observable only through (costly) monitoring," WiSo-HH Working Paper Series 20, University of Hamburg, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, WISO Research Laboratory.
    13. Carpenter, Jeffrey & Myers, Caitlin Knowles, 2010. "Why volunteer? Evidence on the role of altruism, image, and incentives," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 911-920, December.
    14. Bartling, Björn & Özdemir, Yagiz, 2023. "The limits to moral erosion in markets: Social norms and the replacement excuse," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 138(C), pages 143-160.
    15. Maria Porter & Abi Adams, 2016. "For Love or Reward? Characterising Preferences for Giving to Parents in an Experimental Setting," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(598), pages 2424-2445, December.
    16. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5ulf84sluc9vlb5mrjr32mfetg is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Delavande, Adeline & Zafar, Basit, 2015. "Stereotypes and Madrassas: Experimental evidence from Pakistan," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 247-267.
    18. Christine L. Exley & Stephen J. Terry, 2019. "Wage Elasticities in Working and Volunteering: The Role of Reference Points in a Laboratory Study," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 65(1), pages 413-425, January.
    19. Yann Algan & Yochai Benkler & Mayo Fuster Morell & Jerome Hergueux, 2013. "Cooperation in Peer-Production Economy: Experimental Evidence from Wikipedia," Sciences Po publications info:hdl:2441/5ulf84sluc9, Sciences Po.
    20. Ernst Fehr & Klaus M. Schmidt, "undated". "Theories of Fairness and Reciprocity - Evidence and Economic Applications," IEW - Working Papers 075, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    21. Howe, E. Lance & Murphy, James J. & Gerkey, Drew & Stoddard, Olga B. & West, Colin Thor, 2023. "Sharing, social norms, and social distance: Experimental evidence from Russia and Western Alaska," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 345-358.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:sustdv:v:32:y:2024:i:5:p:5240-5258. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1719 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.