Effect of Social Capital as a Predicate of Cooperative Society’s Competitive Advantage: Study of Selected Cooperative Societies in Ogun State

Abstract

The crucial importance  of cooperative societies activities in a developing country like Nigeria cannot be over emphasized,  it is however unfortunate that despite the tremendous role of cooperative societies, its activities is still greatly hinder by cash trap, low efficiency etc. The aforementioned hindrances are suggestive of the absence of social network, social trust, and social reputation which are proxy of social capital dimensions. Previous studies on relationship between social capital and cooperative society’s competitive advantage remains inconclusive, thus, create gap for further studies. Survey research design was adopted for this study and the population for the study comprised 1,590 executives of co-operative societies in Ogun State, Nigeria. A sample size of 403 was determined using Raosoft calculator. Purposive sampling technique was adopted in selecting respondents and data collected through the use of questionnaire. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The analysis of findings revealed that social reputation (β = 0.391, t = 5.513, p>0.05), social trust (β = 0.312, t = 4.823, p<0.05) and social network (β = 0.367, t = 6.201, p<0.05), have positive and significant effect on competitive advantage of the selected cooperative society in Ogun States, Nigeria. Moreover, the aggregated regression analysis for hypothesis revealed that social capital had a positive and significant effect on competitive advantage of selected cooperative societies in Nigeria (Adj.R² = 0.774; F (3, 357) = 333.817, p < 0.05). The R = 0.881, Adjusted R² = 0.774: These values represent the correlation coefficients between the predicted and actual competitive advantage scores. R² of 0.881 implies a very strong relationship between the social capital dimensions and competitive advantage. This implies that the social capital dimensions have a significant effect on the competitive advantage of these cooperative societies.The study recommended that management of cooperative societies in Nigeria should invest in enhancing their ICT tools, skills and capabilities. Investing on social capital significantly increases competitiveness of their operational value