Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Dis/Organizing Social Capital: Tension In A U.S. National Park, Blake Allen Harms

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The National Park System in the United States is a unique work environment filled with tension, organizational complexity and challenges. Scholars often argue that these types of organizational complexities should be addressed by increasing social capital. Social capital scholars direct practitioner attention toward relational connection as a means of increasing social capital, however without delving into the communicative processes of connecting with others. In this thesis, I embrace a communication as constitutive of organization (CCO) perspective with a focus on dis/organization to investigate “messiness” of employee expressions of social capital in a large western national park. Engaging in qualitative analysis …