EXTERNAL SOCIAL CAPITAL OF ENTERPRISES IN POLAND

The article aims to analyse the external social capital of Polish enterprises and to assess whether external social capital is related to internal social capital and the declared results of enterprises. To the author's knowledge, a separate measurement of external social capital in enterprises in Poland has not been carried out before, which is a novelty. It continues and complements previous research on internal social capital. The model Westlund and Nilsson proposed was the theoretical basis for the empirical analyses. The research was based on the results of a survey conducted on a sample of 650 micro, small, medium and large companies in Poland. Descriptive statistics, non-parametric testing methods and classification methods using the CHAID method were used in the study. Aggregate measures were also used to determine the level of social capital. The main results are: that age, the size of firms and the nature of the market are characteristics that statistically significantly differentiate enterprises due to the level of external social capital; external social capital is positively and statistically significantly correlated with internal social capital and with declared enterprises' performance.