ABSTRACT
Since Lin and Dumin (1986) created the measurement of social capital by using position generators to elicit an individual's social networks, research on social capital operationalized by position-generated networks has rapidly increased worldwide (Lin, Cook and Burt 2001; Flap and Volker 2004; Lin and Erickson 2008; Hsung, Lin and Breiger 2009). Position-generated networks were designed by using a variety of occupational positions in a society to elicit an individual's social resources through different types of relationships with ego. Lin (2001c) defines social capital as the investment and return of the diversity of positiongenerated networks. The investment of position-generated networks is a complex matrix, and previous research has paid little attention to its dual nature and the characteristics of position-generated networks. By examining how positional resources are conditioned by types of social relations, this measure allows us to explore how the structure of social capital varies across different societies and individuals.
