A qualitative analysis of social intelligence in nonprofit organizations: external knowledge acquisition for human capital development, organizational learning and innovation

Abstract

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are in crisis due to the introduction of new public management. Social intelligence represents organizational members’ tacit knowledge, abilities and skills to sense and understand the needs of external stakeholders, and constantly interact appropriately with the stakeholders for the benefits of their firm. Using 20 qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews across nine Australian NPOs as the central instrument, this paper argues that social intelligence acts as a catalyst to external knowledge acquisition, which can have a dynamic influence on human capital development and organizational learning for innovation in NPOs. The analysis also reveals that half of the participants’ understandings of social intelligence are different to those commonly contained in the literature. The paper argues that a better understanding of the theory–practice divide of social intelligence is necessary if knowledge management, organizational learning and an intellectual capital-view of the firm are to be fully integrated.

Keywords:

• social intelligence
• external knowledge acquisition
• human capital development
• organizational learning
• innovation
• nonprofit organizations

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eric Kong

About the author

Eric Kong is a senior lecturer at the School of Management & Enterprise, University of Southern Queensland, Australia. His current research interests include intellectual capital, knowledge management and nonprofit strategic management. He has published over 60 publications, including international refereed journal articles, refereed conference papers, scholarly research book and book chapters. He was a winner of the 2011 Highly Commended Emerald Literati Award for an article he published in the Journal of Intellectual Capital. An article he published in Knowledge Management Research & Practice in 2009 has been selected as one of the top 10 articles in the Journal in the last decade. Eric was nominated as the Chair of the Best Paper Award for Public and Nonprofit Division at the Academy of Management Conference in 2008 and 2010. In 2010, he served as Guest Editor of Special Issue of Journal of Intellectual Capital on ‘Intellectual Capital and Nonprofit Organizations in the Knowledge Economy’.