The contribution of social capital into the activities of real estate companies in Vietnam

Abstract

The study aims at exploring the structure of social capital and the activities of real estate companies in Vietnam. It also analyzes the contribution of social capital in the activities of real estate companies, which suggest policies to help real estate companies use social capital to improve performance, and assist the Government restrict the forms of negative social cohesion and help companies develop forms of positive social cohesion. The research was conducted in two stages. The first stage, in-dept interviews were used to build the scale and theoretical models. The second stage, a sample of 262 real estate companies in Ho Chi Minh city of Vietnam was surveyed to test the theoretical model. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data. The research results have shown that social capital contributes to all the activities of real estate companies. It suggests policies to improve the performance of the company through the use of social capital, and the macroeconomic policies to restrict the formation of negative social cohesion, and support companies to develop the forms of positive social cohesion. The research has limitations on the scope of scale testing and theoretical models, the sample size is not large, the environmental legal framework is incomplete, research time is in the context of an inflation economy (2010 and 2011). The research results suggested that real estate companies should be concerned and take more time for establishing relationships with internal, external and leaders of business networks to serve business activities. Also the Government should issue policies to regulate social capital on the real estate market in a positive way. Moreover, the findings also suggested the Association of real estate in Vietnam should create values from the social network to serves the interests of the participants. This study is the first of its kind in Vietnam, which explores the relationship between social capital with the business activities of the real estate companies in Vietnam.