The Influence of Social Capital On Project Success Outcomes and the Moderating Role of Project Complexity

Abstract

Social capital has been found to benefit projects and project teams in organizations. However, the research literature is unclear about the extent to which these benefits may be negatively impacted by project complexity. Based on an extensive review of the extant literature and an exploratory case study, testable hypotheses were generated. Using the survey methodology with 302 project managers as respondents, support was found for the hypothesis that knowledge management effectiveness mediates the relationship between bonding capital and project performance as well as between bridging capital and performance. In contrast, our results suggest that creativity does not mediate these relationships. Furthermore, our study shows that both bonding and bridging capital have direct and significant effects on performance. This research disentangles the project complexity construct and shows that all the dimensions of project complexity negatively impact the relationship between bonding capital and KME, while two of the dimensions negatively impact the relationship between bridging capital and KME. Finally, it was found that composite project complexity negatively impacts the relationship between bonding and KME while its effect on bridging capital and KME was not significant.