Learning in project-based organizations: The role of project teams' social capital for overcoming barriers to learning

It is a major challenge for project-based organizations to learn across project boundaries by making project-level knowledge available to the organization as a whole. This study argues that project teams' social capital is conducive to overcoming barriers to learning in project-based organizations. Based on a large-scale analysis of engineering projects in Germany, the study shows that project teams' social capital, i.e. the intra-organizational social ties of project teams with their colleagues outside the project, compensates for project teams' lack of opportunity, motivation, and ability to make project-learnings available to the organization as a whole. By contributing to overcoming barriers to learning in project-based organizations, social capital represents an important driver of organizational learning about market conditions, products and technologies as well as project management.

► We study how to overcome learning barriers in project-based organizations.
► Learning depends on project teams' social capital, i.e. social ties with colleagues.
► Social capital drives opportunities, motivation and ability to learn.
► Social capital-based learning affects all key knowledge domains.