To better manage the image of brands, companies, and organizations, communication has undergone a profound transformation. Today, its role is to manage their relational capital—an intangible asset that now accounts for up to 71% of the market value of CAC 40 companies.
In an economy where value is no longer based on the ownership of goods, but on the orchestration of information flows and networks, the communicator’s role is to transform every interaction into a lasting bond that builds trust and generates potential for business, recruitment, cooperation, and alliances.
Relational capital: at the heart of communication professions
AT HOPSCOTCH, WE BELIEVE AN ORGANIZATION’S SUCCESS DEPENDS ON ITS ABILITY TO FORGE POWERFUL RELATIONSHIPS WITH ALL ITS STAKEHOLDERS.
By cultivating this capital, communication drives a vital engine for the company’s financial and extra-financial performance, its strategic transformation, and its corporate purpose.
This is why we have developed a relational capital indicator to measure the relational performance of your brand, company, or organization.
The relational capital indicator provides a score based on the average of each pillar.
This score varies according to the brand’s DNA, its sector, and its maturity.
It can also be segmented by target audience.
For us, relationships are built on 6 pillars:
KNOW
Stakeholders’ awareness of your brand, company, or organization, and its visibility among them.
FEEL
Stakeholders’ attachment to your brand, company, or organization, and their emotional connection to it.
TRUST
The level of trust between stakeholders and your brand, company, or organization.
LEAD
The perceived ability of your brand, company, or organization to drive progress for an individual, an industry, or society as a whole.
ENGAGE
The ability of stakeholders to interact with your brand, company, or organization, and its advocacy rate (likelihood of recommendation).
CONVERT
The company’s ability to transform an existing bond into partnerships, additional business, and more.
Relational capital at the heart of value
At Hopscotch, we are convinced that successful organizations are those capable of creating powerful, lasting relationships with their audiences—which, in the long term, constitutes the primary lever for their economic performance.
All professions focused on encounters, reputation, and relationships (events, digital, influence, public relations, collective intelligence) contribute to strengthening this bond.
COMMUNICATION IS A SPACE FOR AUTHENTIC AND SINCERE EXCHANGE: IT IS NO LONGER TOP-DOWN OR ONE-WAY:
it is a space for dialogue and mutual understanding.
CONNECTIONS ARE A STRATEGIC ASSET:
in the new economy, built on intangible capital, companies like Uber or Airbnb prove that a business can be valued at billions without owning physical assets, solely by facilitating connections.
COMMUNICATION’S ROLE IS TO CREATE, NURTURE, AND MAINTAIN THE ECOSYSTEM OF THE BRAND, COMPANY, OR ORGANIZATION:
the quality of an organization’s ecosystem guarantees its reputation, performance, agility, and capacity to innovate, as well as its impact on its territory through the lens of CSR & impact communication.
Who is talking about relational capital today?
Relational capital is part of a global movement recognizing the importance of intangibles in the economy:
Institutional and academic bodies
Since 2007, Observatoire de l’Immatériel (French Observatory of Intangibles), in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, has been working to define and measure these assets. Relational capital is identified there as one of the three major components of intangibles, alongside organizational capital and human capital.
The world of finance
financial analysts have noted that the gap between book value and market capitalization continues to grow. Some bankers even estimate that only 20% of a company’s valuation corresponds to its actual financial assets.
The world of business
the relationship economy is an economic model where the primary currency is no longer just money or physical goods, but the trust, emotional connection, and depth of interactions between a business and its stakeholders (customers, employees, and partners).
It suggests that in an age of “digital disruption”—where automation, AI, and price-comparison tools have made products feel like commodities—the only sustainable competitive advantage is the strength of human relationships.
The world of communication
as early as 2017, Hopscotch asserted that relationships were the new strategic asset for companies. In 2019, Hopscotch theorized an approach focused on community marketing. In 2021, Hopscotch released a book to share its vision of communication: Relationships: The New Gold of Compagnies. In 2025, Hopscotch created the first relational capital indicator for business.
The theorists of the relationship economy and relational & social capital
Several major figures have theorized relational capital and the role of connections within the economy:
Pierre Bourdieu: social capital
In the 1980s, Bourdieu explained that we do not only possess money (economic capital) or degrees (cultural capital), but also social capital—the set of relationships and networks that an individual can mobilize to succeed.
Nahapiet and Ghoshal: social capital and management
In the world of management, Janine Nahapiet and Sumantra Ghoshal were the first to truly define relational capital within organizations. They explain how social relationships create intellectual capital, which in turn gives a company a competitive advantage. To make this measurable, they broke social capital into three distinct dimensions:
the structural dimension (the “how”)
this refers to the network ties and the configuration of the connections between people. it’s about the “pipes” through which information flows.
the cognitive dimension (the “what”)
this is the most unique part of their theory. even if people are connected (structural), they cannot exchange knowledge if they don’t understand each other. this dimension provides the shared context.
the relational dimension (the “who”)
this describes the kind of relationship people have. it’s the emotional and motivational side of the connection.
when a company has high social capital across all three dimensions, it innovates faster and learns more efficiently than its competitors. it’s not just about “having a network”; it’s about having a network where people can talk (structural), understand each other (cognitive), and want to help each other (relations)
Maurice Obadia: the relationship economy
As early as the 1980s, Maurice Obadia theorized the existence of a “relationship economy,” where value lies in human interaction and intangible exchanges.
the shift from “possession” to “usage”
Obadia argues that in a relationship-driven economy, consumers care less about owning an object and more about the service and relationship that object facilitates.
information as the “fuel” of the relation
for Obadia, an economy of relations cannot function without data. however, he distinguishes between “cold data” (database entries) and “warm data” (the emotional context of the customer).
the “service-dominant” logic
he theorizes that every product is actually a vehicle for a service.
- a physical product (like a smartphone) is just a tool to maintain a relationship between the user and a digital ecosystem.
- the profit in this economy is generated through the continuity of the link, not the initial transaction.
affective capital
Obadia posits that companies must build affective capital, as a reserve of goodwill and emotional attachment connecting customers & brands.
John DiJulius III: he authored The Relationship Economy: Building Stronger Customer Connections in the Digital Age (2019). He argues that as technology increases, human connection decreases, making “high-touch” interactions more valuable than ever.
Jerry Jao: member of the Rolling Stone Culture Council, Jao has written extensively on how brands must shift from “transactional” to “relational” models to survive in the modern market. About relationship economy by Jerry Jao.
Evert Gummesson: pioneer in “relationship marketing,” Gummesson’s work since the early 2000s laid the academic foundation. he argued that marketing should be viewed as a “network of relationships” rather than a series of one-off sales.
Eva Illouz : while she uses the term “emotional capitalism,” her work theorizes how emotional and economic relationships have become intertwined, where emotions are converted into commodities and professional relationships are”emotionalized.”
Lucio Biggiero: Author of the Manifesto for a Relational Economics, he argues from a more academic standpoint that economics should move away from the “rational individual” (homo economicus) and focus on the complex, cooperative networks of human actors.
Duc Ha Duong: the 5 flows theory. More recently, Duc Ha Duong modeled a theory of the “5 flows” that constitute a relationship: financial, material, emotional, knowledge, and trust.