The relationship between bonding and bridging social capital among Christian denominations across Australia

Abstract

This article is an intricate empirical examination of the relationship between bridging and bonding with respect to subcultural differences in religious denominationW HETHER MEASURED BY WEALTH, influence, or congregation size, Christian churches are significant nonprofit organizations that ascribe to values of helping and building their communities. There is a long tradition of churches playing a role in meeting the welfare needs of individuals, which in Australia is reflected in ongoing partnerships between church agencies and government in provision of welfare services. Churches also play a welfare role independent of government through local initiatives.But many churches are far more congregationally focused than community-oriented. For example, Lyons (2006) found that

Bonding and bridging among first generation Asian migrants in Australian protestant churches

“…This is in line with the lower levels of social capital of non-English speaking congregants in the 2001 NCLS survey (Leonard and Bellamy 2010). This study extends our understanding by showing that this is largely because migrants start with lower levels of both bonding and bridging ties when they arrive in a congregation.…”

“…Although some theory suggests developing bonding capital may detract from developing bridging capital in some denominations (Beyerlein andHipp 2006, Wilson andJanoski 1995), previous studies of Australian churches suggests the opposite maybe true (Leonard and Bellamy 2010). Work with immigrant and multi-ethnic churches suggests migrants can develop networks in the wider community through the contacts that they make within their congregation (Allen 2010, Ley 2008.…”

“…The 2001 NCLS data were used by Leonard and Bellamy (2010) to create a bonding social capital index based on twelve items that included frequency of attendance and duration (number of years involved with the current congregation). Our study looks at how social ties vary in relation to attendance and duration, so it was necessary to develop measures of bonding and bridging that excluded these variables.…”

Managing Organizational Social Capital through Value Configurations

“…Schneider (2009) criticizes the fact that the research focuses mostly on how nonprofits develop social capital for their constituents, but not on how social capital is used for the organization itself. However, if nonprofits play an important role in the reproduction of social capital, then social capital is not only a resource but also an outcome of nonprofit activity (Leonard and Bellamy 2010).…”

“…Nonprofit organizations -especially associations -are reputed to reproduce social capital (Wollebaek and Selle, 2002;Leonard and Onyx 2003). Especially, recent literature focuses on different types of social capital, differentiating the bonding and bridging functions of social capital as resulting from different forms of nonprofits (Passey and Lyons, 2006;Leonard and Bellamy, 2010).…”