ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the possibility that high quality leader-member exchange relationships may represent a measure of social capital and thus predict variance in possible indicators of human capital. It asserts that creation of social capital is likely a critical objective of this most fundamental of organizational relationships, the leader-member dyad. As a "private good," social capital is considered an asset that individuals can spend to better their own situation. While much of the theoretical work in social capital has focused on the private good accruing to those who "own" social capital, there is an emerging consensus that social capital also represents a "larger good." Social capital evolves from ongoing resource exchanges between actors that generate norms of reciprocity. Lacking the presence of social capital, the chapter argues that non-cadre status represents small potential for facilitating the generation of human capital at the firm level.
