Leveraging Employees' Social Capital for Organizational Resilience in Small and Medium‐Sized Enterprises: The Role of High‐Involvement Work Practices

Abstract

Employees' bridging social capital (EBSC), conceptualized as the collective bridging social capital that employees bring into the organization, has been recognized as a potential resource for fostering organizational resilience (i.e., the ability to survive and thrive when confronted with unexpected disruptions and challenges), especially for small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in a turbulent business environment. However, the questions of how and when EBSC relates to organizational resilience remain underexplored. Drawing on dynamic capabilities theory, we propose that knowledge sharing—a dynamic and emergent process where knowledge is introduced, exchanged, combined, and integrated within organizations—represents a key process through which EBSC may be associated with organizational resilience. We further propose that this mechanism is stronger in organizations that extensively implement high‐involvement work practices (HIWPs). Using data from 1131 participants (including top management team members, middle‐level managers, and entry‐level employees) across 175 SMEs in Nigeria, we find that the relationship between EBSC and knowledge sharing, as well as the indirect association between EBSC and organizational resilience via knowledge sharing, is stronger when HIWPs are high rather than low. These findings highlight the importance of HIWPs in leveraging EBSC to enhance organizational resilience, providing practical insights for SMEs seeking to harness EBSC for organizational advantages.