Measuring social capital in tourism operation and its influences on peoples’ involvement

This study developed a reliable scale for measuring Social Capital in the context of tourism operations and examines its influences on Peoples' Involvement. The quantitative research method was employed, and the five stages of data purification processes were performed: identification of dimensions and indicators, item-to-total correlation, and explorative factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and the structural equation model. The study identifies four dimensional scales of social capital across 13 indicators: bonding social capital, social bridging capital, social linking capital, and social harmless capital, and confirms that social capital has a significant influence on peoples' involvement. As the first effort at scale development, the present study has added value to the present knowledge of social capital in tourism and argued that social capital has the ability to predict people's involvement in the tourism industry. The findings have important implications for the tourism industry and the sustainable tourism operations.