"By explicitly connecting social networks to the goals of corporate players, this book provides a unifying framework to the study of social capital in an organizational context. In this volume "social capital" is defined as the resources that accrue to an actor through his or her social relationships and that aid in the attainment of goals. The book introduces the new notion of "social liability" as a framework to analyze the negative effects social networks can have on the attainment of goals by firms and/or their members.

Corporate Social Capital and Liability thus presents a new way to tie together findings and approaches in the literature by explicitly addressing the distinction between networks and outcomes, the distinction between networks at the level of firms and networks at the level of individuals, and the distinction between positive outcomes of social structure (social capital) and negative outcomes (social liability)."--Jacket.