Capacity Building Or Capacity Development

Capacity building or capacity development is a term that can take upon many interpretations and operationalization’s according to the literature (CHET, 2002; OECD, 2012; UNDP, 2009). Ziguras and Mcburnie (2007) underline it as ‘development assistance that focuses on improving an individual’s, community’s or nation’s ability to provide for itself’. This is in line with a definition provided by Brinkerhoff and Morgan (2010): ‘the evolving combination of attributes, capabilities and relationships that enables a system to exist, adapt and perform’. This demonstrates that although there is no general agreement on its definition (van Deuren, 2013), there is a broad agreement that capacity development is an engine for upgrading human capital. This

Hence, creating, transferring and sharing knowledge is vital to capacity development. According to Argote (2012) knowledge transfer is ‘the process through which one unit is affected by the experience of another’. Sutrisno and Pillay (2014) add that is a personal conviction based on a combination of ‘personal values, characteristics and interactions with others’. Knowledge can be transferred explicitly/articulated through teaching materials, research papers or curricula (Sutrisno and Pillay, 2014; UNDP, 2009). At the same time, it can happen tacitly when skills and competencies are mastered by an academic, these can also be norms and beliefs and values. It is much more difficult to transfer than explicit or codified knowledge (King, 2009; Sutrisno and Pillay, 2014). The transfer of knowledge happens through two mechanisms (King, 2009): (1) soft mechanism refers to face-to-face interactions where tacit knowledge is diffused between the sender and the receiver of the university, (2) hard mechanism underlines indirect means such as ICT or books that transfer explicit knowledge. Therefore, soft KT mechanisms are important in educational institutions to build trust, especially when the cultural gap is big (King, 2009). Hard mechanism on the other hand can be used for the operational processes. This also indicates the existence of hard and soft

Cultural capital provides one with tangible and intangible assets to achieve goals and move up the social ladder (Bourdieu, 1986; Walther, 2014). Institutionalized cultural capital refers to educational achievements (e.g. specialized knowledge). Objectified cultural capital are material objects, such as belongings, books and clothes. Incorporated or embodied capital resides within a person, e.g. personality and skills. In his later works, Bourdieu (1984;1996) reaches beyond the four main capitals discussed above and elaborates on academic capital as a form of cultural capital. Academic capital is referred to as years of schooling (quantity) or status from the school one has graduated from (quality) (Bourdieu, 1984;1996). Bourdieu (1984) states there is a level of conversion between academic and cultural capital, where he argues that the amount of inherited cultural capital (e.g. family or school) shape academic capital. Other scholars tend to agree and argue that academic capital is an accumulation of the total educational involvements (Burawoy, 2009; Collinson, 2000; Eddy, 2006). In his paper, Eddy (2006) looked at teaching experience, publications and networks to compare academic capital. Prejmerean et al. (2008) found academic exchanges and research output as important factors for academic capital. In this paper, academic capital