The role of social capital in knowledge sharing: the case of a specialist rock construction company

Abstract

In the discourse on knowledge management, the concept of social capital plays a key role as the mediator of individual know‐how or ‘human capital’ (i.e. individual cognitive or embodied skills and know‐how) and structural ‘organizational capital’, i.e. knowledge embedded in the routines and standard operating procedures of an organization. A study of a Swedish specialist rock construction company, ConCo, demonstrates how the social network acquired by individual site managers is mobilized when unanticipated events occur in day‐to‐day working life. Rather than using a written or mediated system of knowledge sharing (i.e. Intranets or databases), the site managers relied primarily on verbal communication with their peers. Whenever they encounter a problem, site managers talk to their colleagues or call experts outside the firm in order to get credible and useful advice on how to handle precarious situations. One of the implications of the study is that conceiving of knowledge not as an individual property but as a social accomplishment may enable more detailed understanding of how intellectual resources are used in the construction industry.

Keywords:

• Social capital
• learning‐by‐doing
• knowledge management.