Measuring individual social capital in cooperatives in West Shoa, Ethiopia

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to extend the knowledge of the measurement of dimensions of social capital in cooperatives. The paper draws on data collected in a survey of 154 members in dairy cooperatives to develop and test composite indicators for measuring dimensions of social capital: structural, relational, and cognitive. Principal component analyses (PCAs) were performed on the data sets of indicators of dimensions of social capital. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of Sphericity supported the appropriateness of performing PCAs. After the extraction of the principal components, intermediate composite indicators were computed for the dimensions of social capital. Finally, the composite indicators were computed as linear weighted aggregations of the intermediate composite indicators. The internal consistency of the composite indicators was verified using Cronbach's alpha. The method provided single, synthetic measures for the dimensions of social capital, which are robust and exhibit construct validity. The paper provided practical knowledge that can be applied to measuring dimensions of social capital in cooperatives.