Mechanisms of Social Capital in Organizations: How Team Cognition Influences Employee Commitment and Engagement

• Published date: 01 October 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0275074019851894
• Date: 01 October 2019
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074019851894

American Review of Public Administration

2019, Vol. 49(7) 777 –791

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/0275074019851894

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Article

Introduction

Social capital is a collective resource made up of collabora-

tion, trust, and a sense of mission among members within

organizations (Inkpen & Tsang, 2005; Nahapiet & Ghoshal,

1998). Private sector research has shown that firms with

more social capital develop favorable organizational attri-

butes that help create an advantage over other firms (Chow

& Chan, 2008; de Clercq, Dimov, & Thongpapanl, 2013;

Sherif, Hoffman, & Thomas, 2006; Tsai & Ghoshal, 1998).

Similarly, public sector research has shown that the social

capital of public organizations is positively related to organi-

zational performance, although such an effect can be nonlin-

ear, mediated, and disproportionally beneficial to certain

client groups (Andrews, 2010; Compton & Meier, 2016;

Holme & Rangel, 2012; Leana & Pil, 2006).

Despite clear evidence regarding performance effects at

the macro level, little is known about the specific mecha-

nisms through which the benefits of social capital material-

ize within organizations. In particular, relatively little

research examines the internal organizational variables that

subtract or add social capital, or how organizational social

capital (OSC) affects individual outcomes that potentially

improve performance. This article’s first contribution is that

it sheds light on the mechanisms1 at the micro level that may

help further explain the connection between social capital

and organizational performance: how OSC is linked to the

work engagement and organizational commitment of mem-

bers within public organizations. The article’s second contri-

bution is that it examines the importance of teams in the

process of translating social capital into positive employee-

level outcomes. Work groups often constitute prisms through

which employees view the entire organization, and social

interactions with team members shape individual percep-

tions of the work environment.

Our theory is concerned with the perceptions of organiza-

tion-wide social capital by individual employees who consti-

tute our unit of analysis. Drawing on organizational behavior

theories of teams and learning (e.g., Mohammed, Ferzandi, &

Hamilton, 2010; Rentsch & Klimoski, 2001; Wong, 2004),

we argue that team cognition with regard to OSC shapes team

members’ social capital perceptions. That is, employees’

understanding of the social capital in the organization they

work for is a function of the social interactions within their

work groups. In a second theoretical step, we argue that indi-

viduals’ perception of the presence of OSC fosters positive

851894ARPXXX10.1177/0275074019851894The American Review of Public AdministrationKroll et al.

research-article2019

1Florida International University, Miami, USA

2University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

3University of Hamburg, Germany

Corresponding Author:

Alexander Kroll, Florida International University, 11200 SW 8th Street,

PCA 351B, Miami, FL 33199, USA.

Email: akroll@fiu.edu

Mechanisms of Social Capital in Organizations:

How Team Cognition Influences Employee

Commitment and Engagement

Alexander Kroll1, Leisha DeHart-Davis2, and Dominik Vogel3

Abstract

While previous research has shown that organizational social capital benefits organizations and creates performance gains, most of

this work examined this relationship at the macro level based on organizational aggregates. In this article, we study organizational

social capital effects at the micro level, that is, its impact on important work-related attitudes of employees within organizations.

We argue that individual perceptions of organization-wide social capital matter in determining employee attitudes such as

engagement and commitment. We also point to the critical role of team cognition in shaping individual perceptions of social

capital in organizations. Using an organizationally representative sample of nearly 1,200 individuals from two local government

organizations in North Carolina, we find support for the indirect effect of team cognition on employee work attitudes. The

findings suggest that a promising way to increase the social capital of organizations is through interventions at the team level.

Keywords

organizational social capital, commitment and engagement, team mental models and cognition, public-sector organizational

behavior