This article aims to show how religious organizations can generate social capital, to the extent of establishing social relations that improve the action of its members-entrepreneurs. In this sense, participation in these spaces can be interpreted as a new source of capital or, more specifically, spiritual capital. The central hypothesis is that significant resource generators of social capital (COLEMAN, 1988) such as obligations and expectations, information channels, norms and sanctions, strengthening social ties and social organization can be triggered by religious practice. To explore this hypothesis, the research strategy adopted was the qualitative comparative case study of two religious organizations in Brazil. The first is the Catholic Church, called the Focolare Movement, and the other one is an Evangelical Church, locally denominated "Renascer em Cristo" (Reborn in Christ). The data were collected through observation, interviews and documentary research. It was found that, in general, the religious structures of the firms form a special type of social capital, denominated spiritual capital (due to its religious origin) - through the closure of social networks, appropriable social organization, obligations and norms, information channels (COLEMAN, 1988), structures of plausibility and religious networks of mutual aid. The results revealed specific features of spiritual capital which are not sufficiently addressed by theories of social capital, as formulated by Coleman. Finally, we identified differences and similarities in the formation of the spiritual capital of the religious organizations under study, focusing on the behavior of the members-entrepreneurs.
Social capital; spiritual capital; religious organizations; gift; entrepreneurship
