Abstract:

This study focuses on the perceived community social climate's role as a capital for retaining knowledge-workers in the region. The conceptualization of the perceived community social climate includes seven dimensions: network participation, amenities, collective efficacy, neighborhood ambiance, civic participation, tolerance for diversity, and trust among residents. We offer a measurement scale suitable for measuring physical and virtual interactions. We validated the scale with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis on a sample of 533 university graduates in Israel. We apply the new measure to investigate the effect of the perceived community social climate on university graduates' staying intentions in the community. We analyzed the data utilizing Multiple-Indicators-Multiple-Causes (MIMIC) model. The findings show that: i) collective efficacy and civic participation motivate neighborhood staying intentions; ii) collective efficacy is motivated by neighborhood amenities, network participation, and social trust; iii) social trust mediates between collective efficacy, neighborhood ambiance, and tolerance-for-diversity; iv) civic participation derives from to neighborhood ambiance and network participation.