The role of social capital in project managers’ responses to complexities

Social capital has been demonstrated to be an important commodity for managers in project-based operations. This paper examines the role of social capital in the work of 36 managers from three engineering firms, using qualitative case data. We ask the research question ‘How is Social Capital used by Project Managers in responding to complexities?’ We derive an improved understanding of how social capital is used in responding to their context. To do this, we draw on two established bodies of work. First, we use the lived experience of the complexity faced by the managers to describe the context. Secondly, we use social capital theory to examine what elements of social capital are employed in response. The interchange between these is initially framed with ‘contextual complexities’ as stimulus and the 'social capital employed’ as response. Our findings show the temporal dynamics of complexity, whereby responses are not isolated but dependent upon both recent experience and expectations of future events. We also show the importance of social relationships in developing valuable recursive patterns of interaction in the project context.