It is known that any individual is simultaneously part of several social groups or micro-groups (family, community, church, company, etc.); essentially, the values a person believes in and the level of trust in other people or institutions will make the actual manner in which the individual is manifested in relationships with others. Identifying behaviors of social groups and their values, requires, we believe, a more detailed analysis of the identity of the individual and / or the social groups (social norms and their related behaviors, their social networks and the type of competition, confidence and values - key coordinates of the social capital). Therefore, in this article we aim to discuss the concept of social capital, trying to identify to what extent certain social practices and / or formal relations between groups of individuals can promote economic performance of some countries. The social "infrastructure" of a country (the historical traditions and customs, social/ political events, the trust between the ruled and the rulers, the social values of different groups and micro-groups, the national education systems, etc.) may be a contributing factor to the climate governing the business world. Consequently, we deduce that the directions of the civil society, it is formed in time in a kind of framework or "matrix" that can foster more or less the performance of companies. Therefore, our research examines predominantly the social capital and the functioning of formal social groups from macroeconomic perspective; in particular, the operation of formal social groups in Romania.