Social capital and its role in enhancing the effectiveness of Knowledge management Practices

In the knowledge-based era knowledge management (KM) is considered as the primary task of organizations that strive to utilize of their intellectual capitals effectively. Hence it is vital to understand carefully the appropriate contexts and enablers of knowledge management. Social capital (SC) is one of the most influential factors on the effectiveness of knowledge management, but its role is not explained sufficiently. This article tries to explain this relationship more precisely. In these efforts, the context of interaction between SC and KM, various causes of orienting KM scholars to SC, and various viewpoints regarding this relationship will be explained. Introducing various aspects of SC that are most relevant to KM constitutes the later section of this article. These dimensions include trust, beliefs, norms, rules, expectations and obligations, identity and ethical infrastructure. Finally some effective endeavors for creating and enforcing SC in line with enhancing KM effectiveness will be explained. Among these efforts it can be referred to considering the linier and self-enforcing nature of SC, being commitment to maintaining social contracts in work environments, creating interpersonal relations facilitating job accomplishing, developing social networks and considering the relationship between social capital and human capital.