Purpose -Culture and cultural heritage are usually included in the general discussions on the construction of social capital and its impact on socio-economic development. Despite that, it seems that there has not been enough in-depth reflection on the typology and diversity of possible links between heritage and social capital. The purpose of this paper is to focus on an important aspect of heritage impact -its role in creating and enhancing social capital. Design/methodology/approach -The aim of the article is to explain in what ways cultural heritage may constitute a tool, medium or space for enhancing and developing this type of capital. Though the text is mainly of theoretical character, conceptual statements are illustrated with selected cases from Great Britain and Poland, countries which differ significantly with respect to the level of social trust and involvement of residents in non-governmental organisations, yet both reflect well the broad array of impacts of heritage on social capital. Findings -The article indicates myriad impacts of tangible and intangible cultural heritage on social capital. It points to significant potential of heritage in terms of providing places of encounters and community hubs, sites of social integration and inclusion, functioning as a source of identity and local pride as well as being a reason for common actions, activities of NGOs and volunteers. Attention is paid also to the possible negative effects of heritage on social capital. Practical implications -It seems necessary to include this aspect of heritage impact in policy making, not only in the field of culture and monument protection but also in other spheres, taking into account both positive and negative potential of cultural heritage with respect to social capital. Social implications -The article focuses on an important social aspect of heritage impact in the local and regional context, which should be taken into account by managers of heritage institutions and sites. Originality/value -A new, coherent typology of impacts and links between heritage and social capital is proposed, which may be useful to different level public authorities and organizations and also helpful to practitioners in the field of heritage management, with respect to social implications of heritage projects and activities conducted by them.

Abstract. Various aspects of beliefs, behaviour and expectations of at-risk populations were analysed in four case study localities in southern Poland that were affected by flooding in 1997 and 2001. They represent localities of different sizes and are characterised by different paths of historical development. Two of them are deep-rooted communities with dense, strong family and neighbourhood ties, while the other two experienced an almost total replacement of their population due to decisions taken after World War II and still suffer from less developed social networks. Historical events also resulted in the disruption of local memories of flooding and transmission of knowledge about natural hazards. A questionnaire survey was conducted in late autumn 2006, followed by structured telephone interviews and focus group interviews in spring 2008. The results of the survey and interviews were analysed with reference to the social capacity framework and its five dimensions: knowledge, motivational, network, economic and governance capacities. Network capacities, that is resources of bonding and bridging social capital, were considered a key notion when analysing and interpreting the results. The differences in the local resources and abilities available in each of the localities to prepare a response to natural hazards were revealed. Consequently, challenges faced in the process of building and strengthening social capacity were identified as well as ways to address these challenges. It was concluded that there are general trends and tendencies that need to be considered in risk management strategies, however the different starting points of each case study community calls for different means and approaches, as well as producing somewhat different expected outcomes.

The concept of social capital is widely perceived as a promising tool for explaining differences in economic development between countries and regions. According to this theory, weak links (bridging social capital) and social trust in an area favour its better access to other forms of capital, that is, economic and human capital. However, strong links (bonding social capital) may stifle creativity and entrepreneurship. Since the vast majority of research on the impact of social capital on economic development focuses on highly developed Western European countries, it seems particularly interesting to evaluate the usefulness of this approach when applied to post‐communist countries with their different experiences. The objective of this article is to identify the spatial variation of different forms of social capital in regions of Poland and then to test a hypothesis on the impact of this capital on regional economic development. The results demonstrate that despite the existing differences between regions there are no significant relationships between levels of social capital and economic development. This may be explained either by low social capital levels or by the overall degree of Polish economic development.

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