Social capital for industrial development: operationalizing the concept

The present report on Social capital for industrial development: operationalizing the concept is part of the broader Combating Marginalization and Poverty through Industrial Development (COMPID), research programme of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), designed to enhance the competitiveness of industrial producers in marginalized countries.1 The Industrial Development Report 2002/2003 posits that, especially in the least developed countries, building industrial competitiveness: ‘‘… can involve heavy costs and great risks and uncertainties’’ (UNIDO [131], p. 9). The main reason for conducting research on operationalizing social capital is that there are grounds for believing that social capital could potentially mitigate some of the risks and uncertainties that exist in low-income and marginalized countries, and thus help to increase their level of competitiveness