Author(s): Patrick Balian, Assaad Farah, Udo Braendle & Farah Arkadan
The competitive superiority & agility needed to grow often depends on the quality of a firm’s social capital. Using intervention research in the context of a US-based retail ecommerce business, this paper tests the hypothesis that enhancing social capital improves performance. This study uses socio-economic theory and socio-economic methodology to encourage the organizational reform from within the enterprise at all levels and with the participation of all the company's actors. The results of this intervention study supported the hypothesis at all stages. The study finds that enhancing social capital significantly contributes to the success of the retail ecommerce firm in terms unique qualitative and quantitative indicators, including enhanced stakeholder relationships, faster management decision making, enhanced internal and external stakeholder collaboration, enhanced cashflow and reduced product returns by customers, that extend existing research on the role of social capital in improving retail ecommerce firm performance.