Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 5

IOSR Journal Of Humanities And Social Science (IOSR-JHSS) Volume 20, Issue 6, Ver. V (Jun. 2015), PP 60-64 e-ISSN: 2279-0837, p-ISSN: 2279-0845. www.iosrjournals.org

The Relationship Social Capital and Empowerment in Central Libraries’ Librarians of Public Universities in Tehran

Sanaz Beyramzadegan* 1 , Mohammad Rahim Rasouli-Azad 1

1 Faculty of Information and Knowledge Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Roud-e-hen branch,Tehran, Iran

Abstract: This study investigates the relationship between social capital with empowering the librarians in the central libraries of Tehran public universities. The present study is a practical, descriptive, correlative one. The participants include 181 librarians of 24 central libraries of public universities in Tehran. The data collection tools are Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) social capital questionnaire and Ivancevish, Konopaske and Matson(2005) empowerment questionnaire. To analyze data, Pearson's correlation coefficient and sample t-test were used. The results indicated that there exists a meaningful relationship between these twocomponents social capital and empowering librarians of central libraries in Tehran public universities, and the level of meaningfulness is 1% and this relationship is weak, positive and direct. Therefore, to improve the performance of the staff and empowering this human capital based on social capital, the authorities should provide appropriate structures in organizational management strategy. Keywords: social capital, empowerment, the librarians of central libraries in public universities of Tehran.

I.

Introduction

In the past decades, the concept of social capital has caused controversies in social sciences and specially in sociology(Ejtehadi, 2007). Unlike other kinds of capital, social capital has no physical existence. However it is the product of social norms and interaction. On the other hand paying attention to it can lower the expenses of managing the society and also can lower the expenses of organizational functions, so this will lead to improvement of organizational function (Wine, 2003). In the other words, the quality and competency of manpower is one of the important elements of the survival of organizations. The most valuable capital for an organization is competent human capital. Competent manpower produces a competent organization(Gresley et al 2004). Empowering the staff, based on the reinforcement and increase of social capital in organizations is also the use of the staff's potential abilities that at present are not used totally. The achievements that competent organizations can gain through the usage and reinforcement of social capital include: the increase of the staff's job satisfaction, the staff's more obligation, the quality improvement of works, the better relationship of the managers and the staff, the increase of efficiency of decision making process, continuous improvement in organization and the increase of usefulness (Niyazi, 2004). The managers through the assessment of different subjects want to get access to the elements that directly or indirectly affect the staff's empowerment. One of these elements is social capital. Social capital is one the concepts that in recent years has been used frequently in the fields of progress, productivity and life quality, and has influenced different organizational elements. To investigate the staff's empowerment, Thomas and Velthouse(1990) theory was used and to investigate the social capital, Nahapiet and Ghoshaltheory (1998) was used.

The investigated aspects of social capital in this research Structural aspect: This aspect includes behavioral pattern among one group or a society. In introducing structural component of social capital, Bart(1992) refers to the general pattern of people's interaction. The most important aspects of this component include the net of relationships among people, network configuration and suitable organization. Interactional aspect (customer): The interactional component of social capital describes a kind of personal relationship that people make with each other because of the background of their interactions. The most important aspects of this aspect of social capital include: trust, norms, obligation and expectations and identity (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). The cognitive aspect: The cognitive element of social capital refers to the sources that provide symbols, interpretations and common meaning systems among the groups. The most important aspects of this side include: languages, common codes and anecdotes. Thomas and Velthouse, consider the empowerment as the process of manpower internal motivation increaseabout delegated duties accounts, that manifests itself in a collection of four cognitive fields: being efficient and having control on the results of the activities, competency that means believing your own abilities

The relationship social capital and empowerment in central libraries’ librarians of public

in following your duties successfully, meaningfulness that means giving value to targets based on ideals and personal standards and finally the right of selection field that means having autonomy in doing your tasks( Thomas and Velthouse 1990). The present study tries to investigate the relationship between social capital with the empowerment of librarians of central libraries in Tehran public universities. These universities have central libraries with equipped and organized system and so far no research has been conducted to find the relationship between social capital and empowerment of librarians in these libraries. The establishment of university libraries as they are now and with compiled law is not so old. The reason of the existence of this kind of libraries in universities, colleges, learning institutions, high education institutes is to help the professors, teachers and students promote the teaching and research and the most important type is central libraries or interuniversity libraries. Regarding the extent of universities, these centers play an important role in providing informative services in every country and the society of university libraries often include students, faculty members and graduates of the university that are known as the important users of university central libraries. On the other hand everyone knows that a big share of the job of spreading information in universities belongs to the university libraries(Jonmohammdi, 2009) Therefore, the interaction of people in libraries is one of the reasons of importance librarians’ services that are one of the main supporters of the field of social capital(Cox et al.2000) By the arrival of modern technology, extensive changes have occurred in the libraries specially university libraries. Therefore, these libraries need to adapt with the changes in order to provide services and to meet the needs of university group appropriately. Library as a social institute has to be able to act competently in meeting the needs of the clients.The final competency of a library is possible through the use of the competent staff. Thus, to empower the librarians, constant attempts have to be followed (Olumi, 2006). Since the library staff (librarians) not only provide usual services of an organization whose job is providing services but also play an important role in promoting the knowledge and attitude and expanding the knowledge of society. This study measures the social capital and empowering the librarians of central libraries of Tehran public universitiesbecause it wants to answer if there is relationship between social capital and empowering the librarians?

Some conducted studies regarding to the research variables Doayi et al (2014) investigated the impact of intellectual capital on the quality of the staff's work life through the empowering. Their results indicated that intellectual capital and its aspects through the empowerment has a positive and meaningful impact on the working life quality of the staff. Haghighatian et al (2008) in a research indicated that there is meaningful relationship between social capital and aspects of job activities of the teachers. Mirkamali and Nastizayi (2010) indicated in a research there is meaningful relationship between psychological empowerment and job satisfaction in nurses. Hechanova (2006) in his research to identify the relationship between empowerment and job satisfaction of the staff and their supervisors in different sections stated that the psychological empowerment has a positive relationship with job satisfaction and function. Shelton (2002) indicated in his research that the attempts of each organization to use the staff's empowerment requires the staff's trust on supervisors in order to promote the level of success. Menollich and Laschingre (2002) concluded from their research that through the nurses' psychological empowerment it is possible to increase their job satisfaction and this has led to the increase of patients' satisfaction and improves the patients' expected procedures.

The research main question Is there a relationship between social capital and empowerment of librarians of central libraries in public universities of Tehran?

The research hypotheses Hypothesis 1: There is a difference with theoretical average between cognitive aspect of social capital and empowerment of librarians of central libraries of public universities in Tehran.

Hypothesis 2: There is a difference with the theoretical average between structural aspect of social capital and empowerment of librarians of central libraries in public universities in Tehran.

Hypothesis 3: There is a difference with theoretical average between communicative aspect of social capital and empowerment of librarians of central libraries in public universities in Tehran.

The relationship social capital and empowerment in central libraries’ librarians of public

II.

Methodology

Regarding the purpose this study is practical and regarding the data collection, it is descriptive and correlative. Documental and library methods were also used. In this research the participants include all of the librarians working in 24 central libraries in public universities of Tehran in 2014. The libraries reported the number of librarians in the libraries of under study is 339 people. Regarding the size of the statistical society of the research and regarding Morgan and Kerjesi table, 181 librarians were selected as sample society. In order to get access to sample society, stratified random sampling was used. Regarding the subject and aim of the research, the researcher has used the standard questionnaire.

The questionnaire includes three parts:

1. Questionnaire for collection of demographic characteristics data

2. Ivancevich & Konopake & Matteson(2005) staff empowerment questionnaire

3. Nahapiet & Ghoshl(1998) social capital questionnaire

The scoring was based on Likert scale(very much=1, much=2, average=3, little=4, very little=5). Cronbach's alpha method was used to measure permanence of internal consistency between the indices (above 0.71). The results of Kolmogrov Smirnov test indicated the high level of internal consistency between indices and to analyze data Pearson's correlation coefficient and mono-sample t-test were used.

III.

Findings

This research was conducted to indentify the relationship between social capital and empowering of the librarians of central libraries in public universities in Tehran. The most important findings are as follow:

24.3% of librarians were male and 75.7 % were female. The results also indicated that, 14.4 % of librarians were

33

years old and less, 51.9 % of them were between the ages 34-43 years old, 26.5 % were between the ages 44-

53

years old and the rest of them were 54 years old and above. Furthermore, the results indicated that, 9.9 % of

them had high school diploma, 8.3 % of them had associate degree, 42.5% of them had bachelor's degree, 37.6

% had master's degree, 1.7 % of them had doctoral degree. Most of them had bachelor's degree. 74% of librarians majored in librarianship and 26% majored in others. Thus, most of them were majored in librarianship.

Table1: The results of librarian’s demographic characteristics

 

variables

number

percent

Gender

female

137

75.7

male

44

24.3

 

24-33

26

14.4

Age group

34-43

94

51.9

44-53

48

26.5

54 and above

13

7.2

 

High school degree

18

9.9

Associate degree

15

8.3

degree

Bachelor's degree

77

42.5

Master's degree

68

37.6

Doctoral degree

3

1.7

Major

librarianship

134

74

others

47

26

The size of society is 181 people.

The results also indicated that:

The results of the research main question indicated that there is meaningful relationship between the amounts of social capital and empowering the central libraries librarians in public universities of Tehran, so that correlation coefficient between two elements with Sig=0.001 equals 0.351(table 2).

Table 2:The results of Pearson's correlation coefficient between the amount of social capital and the amount of empowerment among librarians of public universities in Tehran.

Pearson's correlation coefficient (r)

0.351**

Level of significant (sig)

0.001

**The level of significant is 1%.

The results of the first hypothesis of the research indicated that there is relationship between the amount of cognitive aspect of social capital and the amount of empowerment of the librarians of central libraries in public universities in Tehran, so that the correlation coefficient between the two elements with Sig=0.002 that equals 0.232 (table 3).

DOI: 10.9790/0837-20656064

www.iosrjournals.org

62 | Page

The relationship social capital and empowerment in central libraries’ librarians of public

The results of the second hypothesis of the research indicated that there is relationship between the amount of structural aspect of social capital and the amount of the empowerment of the librarians of central libraries of public universities in Tehran so that the correlation coefficient between the two elements with Sig=0.004 that equals 0.213 ( table 3). The results of the third hypothesis of the research indicated that , there is relationship between the amount of communicative aspect of social capital and the amount of the empowerment of the librarians of central libraries of public universities in Tehran, so that the correlation coefficient between the two elements with Sig=0.001 equals 0.413 (table 3).

Table 3: The results of Pearson's correlation coefficient is the research hypotheses

Hypotheses

Pearson's correlation

Level of meaningfulness (Sig)

coefficient(r)

The relationship of cognitive aspect of social capital and empowerment of librarians in libraries of Tehran public universities

0.232**

0.002

The relationship of structural aspect of social capital with the empowerment of librarians in libraries of Tehran public universities.

0.213**

0.004

The relationship of communicative aspect of social capital with the empowerment of librarians in libraries of Tehran public universities.

0.413**

0.001

**the level of significant is 1%.

IV. Discussion And Conclusion

As the results of demographic statistics indicate, 57.7% of librarians in libraries of Tehran public universities are female and this shows the role of women in the society of librarians. Additionally, 59.1% of them are between 34-43 years old which shows the presence of the young people in the libraries who have enough motivation and meditation in order to promote their jobs. 80.1% of the librarians have the bachelor or master's degrees and 74% of them have the degree that is related to their job which indicates that this job is professional and it is a positive point in these libraries. In the research about main question, the results indicated that there is meaningful relationship between the amount of social capital and the amount of empowerment of librarians in central libraries of public universities of Tehran. A relationship with the level of significant of 1% has been observed between these two elements. This relationship is weak and its direction is positive and direct. In other words, HO hypothesis has been rejected and H1 hypothesis has been proven. In considering this hypothesis regarding the findings and results we can point to Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) and Thomas and Velthouse (1990) theory. In general, people with high level of social capital in comparison to others acquire suitable network positions in an organization, so that their position allows them to get access to information and people. Therefore, they are able to acquire the requisite knowledge that is related to work problems and they can get access to practical solutions. This enables people to solve their problems easily and also it's like a valuable resource for more exchange with colleagues. Following this procedure, others will become dependent on these people for more advice and these people in the organization acquire advantage that can be used in future exchanges for valuable resources. Thus, these people will find more opportunity to help the organization function and they can gain more positive consequences such as quicker promotion and more success in their jobs. In addition, they can feel competency, effectiveness, meaningfulness and finally sense of selection right in their jobs that will lead to increase of efficiency and effectiveness of organization. The results of Moye Melindaj (2003) research indicated that the more the staff have sense of obligations to the organization, the more trust between the people and organization will be. The staff who feel confident in their workplace show more tendency to this level of trust. In order to reinforce the relationship between social capital and empowerment of librarians, managers should pay special attention to the staff and organization profit. In other words, mangers who are able to have a true understanding of the importance and function of social capital, are successful. Empowering human resources based on social capital is a new way of managing perceptive organizations with a more complicated and competitive future. If there is no staff's empowerment in the strategy of organization management, it is doomed to fail. Constant improvement is feasible only if people have requisite knowledge and they need to be confided in so that they can use their abilities. In the research of first hypothesis, the results indicated that, there is relationship between the amount of cognitive aspect of social capital and the amount of empowerment of librarians in central libraries of public universities in Tehran. The relationship between these two elements is 1 % meaningful. In other words, HO hypothesis has been rejected and H1 has been proved. In considering this hypothesis regarding the results and findings we can refer to Park Hi Hong (2006) study. In his research the role of trust in knowledge creation in a virtual organization has been investigated. He believes the main requirements for production of social capital are opportunity, motivation, and ability and he

The relationship social capital and empowerment in central libraries’ librarians of public

concludes that trust affects the knowledge production through the opportunity, motivation and ability in a virtual organization and elements such as norms and common values and reciprocal trust affect the knowledge creation. In the research of second hypothesis, the results indicated that there is relationship between the amount of structural aspect of social capital and the amount of empowerment of librarians in central libraries in Tehran public universities. The relationship with the level of meaningfulness of 1% has been observed between the two elements and this relationship is weak and its direction is positive and direct. In the other words, HO hypothesis has been rejected, H1 hypothesis has been proved. The results of this study are not in agreement with the results of Horabadi Farahani (2005) research. In response to the research of third hypothesis, the results indicated that there is relationship between the amount of communicative aspect of social capital and the amount of empowerment of the librarians of central libraries in public universities of Tehran. The relationship between the two elements has been observed with the meaningfulness of 1% and this relationship is average and its direction is direct and positive. In the other words, HO hypothesis has been rejected and H1 has been proved. In considering this hypothesis, regarding the findings and results we can refer to Sheltone (2004) research. He also has stressed the relationship between communicative aspect of social capital and the amount of empowerment of the staff.

V.

Conclusion

This study indicated that there is a weak and meaningful relationship between social capital and empowerment of the librarians of central libraries of public universities in Tehran. Thus, the authorities should provide appropriate structures in organizational management strategy in order to improve their function and to empower these human resources based on social capital.

References

[1].

Baker,B (2003).Management and social capital.Translated by Alvani, S.M. and Rabiyi, M, Tehran, Industrial management

[2].

organization publication. Burt, R.S. (1992). Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

[3].

Cox E, Swinbourne K, Pip C and Laing S (2000) A safe place to go: Libraries andsocial capital. Sydney: University of Technology,

Sydney, and the StateLibrary

of

New

South

Wales,

53.

Available

[4].

at:http://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/services/public_libraries/docs/safe_place.pdf. Doayi, H. & Yaghubi, N. & Firuzbakhsh, Z & Sheikhpur,Z (2014).The empowerment of the staff as a link between intellectual

[5].

capital & work-life quality. A quantitative study in management, 5(2): 92-106. Ejtehadi, M (2007).Social capital. Humanities journal, 53: 405-414.

[6].

Greasily, k & et al (2004). Employee participation of empowerment. Employee Relation,. 27( 4): 354-368.

[7].

Haghighatian, M & Rabhani & Rasul & Kazemi & Soheila (2008), The impact of social capital on high school teachers' activities in

[8].

Esfehan, knowledge & research in education journal, 17: 147-164. Hechanova, Ma. Regina, M.(2006).Psychological empowerment, jop satisfaction and performance among Filipino service workers.

[9].

Asian Journal of social psychology, 9: 72-78. Hi-Hong, P(2006).The Role of trust on knowledge creation In a virtualorganization: A social capital perspective, Journal of

[10].

Knowledgemanagement practice",7(4):5-15. Horr-Abadi Farahani, M (2005).The investigation of organization structure and empowerment. Master's thesis.Tehran university.

[11].

Ivancevich, J M; Konopaske R; Matteson, M T(2005).Organizational Behavior and Managemant.McGraw-Hill.

[12].

Janmohammadi,M (2009). The investigation of leadership style of library managers and the amount of their creativity( case study:

Tehran universities libraries). Master's thesis. Tarbiat Modarres university.

 

[13].

Manojlovich, M., & Laschinger, H. K. S(2002).The relationship of empowerment and selected personality characteristics to nursing

[14].

job satisfaction. JONA, 32(11): 586-595. Mirkamali, M & Nastizayi, N.( 2010).The investigation of the relationship of psychological empowerment and job satisfaction in

[15].

nurses.Nursing and midwifery journal. Orumiyeh, , 8(2): 104-113. Moye, Melindaj, (2003).The relationship of employeeempowerment & commitment to the organization to interpersonal”, leveltrust.

[16].

PhD, the Univeristy of Uiowa. Nahapiet, J. and S. Ghoshal (1998). Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage. Academy of

[17].

Management Review 23(2): 242-266. Niyazi, M (2004). The explanation of the relationship between social unity and citizens participation in Kashan, Emdadpajuhan

[18].

Journal: 13:1-26 Olumi, T. (2006). Library Management. Samt publication. Tehran. P:190.

[19].

Shelton ST(2002). Employee, supervisors andempowerment in the public sector: the role ofemployee trust. (Dissertation). Faculty

[20].

of NorthCarolina State University. Thomas, K. W. and Velthouse, B. A. (1990). “ Cognitive Elements ofEmpowerment: An Interpretive Model of Intrinsic Task Motivation “,Academy of Management Review, 15(4): 666-681.
https://ru.scribd.com/document/270236633/The-Relationship-Social-Capital-and-Empowerment-in-Central-Libraries-Librarians-of-Public-Universities-in-Tehran
ru.scribd.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2020-45
547293
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:D5VUK4ZTWVYEMHVCOGWZCU6L2JCF4GFS
<urn:uuid:8f78170c-2499-40d0-a2b1-21a34270cc77>
2020-10-28T18:28:26Z
151.101.202.152
application/xhtml+xml
sha1:VHBCF4Z25DJIAI3USH4R6FRPYJF6IH3P
<urn:uuid:4c9ccf3a-db43-4535-9257-e21537460eb4>
https://ru.scribd.com/document/270236633/The-Relationship-Social-Capital-and-Empowerment-in-Central-Libraries-Librarians-of-Public-Universities-in-Tehran
response
<urn:uuid:c6b3a250-7874-4bf1-a20a-7245b8e86d53>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2020-45
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for October 2020
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-44.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.17 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.2-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/