**4.1. Personal SC and conflicts**

The concept of personal SC leans on Granovetter's network theory [21]. The main difference between the position of an actor in the network and personal SC is the emphasis on the outcomes—the "capital," which the individual wins due to his/her position in the social

Shipley and Berry [22] proved that individuals who have high levels of personal SC receive more social benefits than the individuals who have low levels of personal SC. Some of these benefits in organizations are as follows: the status of the individual in the organization [23] receiving information and knowledge, amassing personal power, finding jobs and promotion—both within and between organizations [20, 24], and even earning higher salary [25].

The middle level intraorganizational SC [26] is derived from interactions within the groups, between them, and up to interactions in the whole organization [27, 28]; therefore, it can be conceptualized as a public good rather than a private good [29]. It entails the premise of mutual objectives [27], trust [30] reciprocity [31], respect and appreciation [32], sharing of

The benefits of intraorganizational SC are better cooperation inside the organization, better employee performance [35, 36], and even better health, physical [37, 38] and mental [39] for

The upper level of SC is created by the connections of leaders [40] and agents from the organizations with external interfaces such as competitors, investors, external directors, customers,

The benefits from external SC are access to key external providers of resources [41], reputation

Zhao and Roper [45] claimed that external SC is a type of personal SC. This is partly true, but the use of the SC must be taken into consideration. If an organizational position holder uses the SC for his/her own benefit, it is clearly personal SC, but if the use is for the organizations' good, this is an external SC. This distinction may seem a bit simplistic because the SC types are interdependent, but usually, use of SC by a representative of the organization [46] for the

According to many definitions (such as 1), SC is a unifying factor, and it aids in bridging conflicts. Varshney [47] supported this by claiming that SC is a peace-building mechanism. Argyle and Furnham [48] suggested that conflict may be more accepted in strong relationships. On the other hand, conflicts are not pleasant and may lead to negative consequences, and to drastic changes in social relations between people, and therefore can undermine existing SC [49].

network.

56 Organizational Conflict

**3.2. Intraorganizational SC**

**3.3. External SC**

and suppliers.

**4. SC and conflicts**

information and knowledge [33], and common norms [34].

[42], investments [43], productivity [44], and so on.

good of the organization will be categorized as external SC.

members of units and organizations with high intraorganizational SC.

A person with a lot of personal SC is probably a person with many friends, and indeed, in organizations, it is possible that a high portion of personal SC results due to expert positioning outside or inside the organizations or formal power (such as managerial or high rank positioning), but the social component is very important in amassing personal SC. Usually, a person with many friends has the practical knowledge of how not to get involved in harmful conflicts [51]. Moreover, personal SC may contribute to avoiding conflicts generally. For example, Guo et al. [52] found that the more friends Chinese older adults in the United States have, the less conflicts they have with their spouse and family. On the other hand, affective conflicts ("A-type") are usually personal and based on hurt feelings; therefore, they are being created in the personal SC level. Ibarra et al. [53] thought that this dilemma could be answered only by relating the different SC levels at the same time, they created a 2 × 2 matrix in which they presented the possibilities of the interactions between high and low personal SC and high and low intraorganizational SC. If a person has high personal SC and high intraorganizational SC, then this person's situation is ideal and most of his/her conflicts are "C-type" conflicts. If, however, the person has a low personal SC and low intraorganizational SC, then he/ she does not connect with others and has bad relationships with them. If he/she has conflicts, they are "A-type" conflicts because his/her communication with others is bad. If this person has low personal SC and high intraorganizational SC, a rare situation that can be found in totalitarian institutions such as a monastery, then there might be some few "A-type" conflicts, but they would not harm the organization or the groups in it. This perspective was supported by Gilligany et al. [54], who found that people who suffer from conflicts in the personal level tend to have less conflicts in the community level if this community has high SC. The fourth possibility was if this person has high personal SC and low intraorganizational SC, then he/ she will have an "A-type" conflicts with people that are not in his/her "in group" or if his/her personal goals contradict the group's goals [55], Ibarra et al. [53] called this kind of conflict "a tragedy of commons"; they claimed that this situation can be especially harmful to the management of the organizations. In **Table 1**, all four combinations are presented.


**Table 1.** The interactions of personal and intraorganizational SC with conflict type, adapted from Ibarra et al. [53].
