Social Capital as a Strategy to Achieve Organizational Resilience for Small and Medium Enterprises: A Grounded Theory Approach

If we deem that the organization is an open system and must manage internal and external shocks, we in fact believe that the organization should be resilient; however, there are usually obstacles to achieving this concept. The aim of the present study is to identify the process of the formation of resilience in small and medium organizations through interpretive philosophy, fundamental orientation, qualitative method, and grounded theory approach. The statistical population was comprised of the managers and employees of small and medium companies active in the pharmaceutical industry and the statistical sample was made up of 45 of them. Eighty eight percent of the sample had university education and 51% had postgraduate education. Also, 88% had more than 5 years of work experience. The results showed that the lack of organizational cohesion is the main cause of the creation of a context in which impulses constantly change the direction of the organization and take it out of its original direction. In the present study, this was called vulnerability. In fact, the main reason for the vulnerability of the organization is the lack of cohesion, which can be seen in organizational stress, low productivity, and the loss of growth opportunities. The way out of vulnerability was found to be social capital, because there are ongoing risks inside and outside the organization that must be monitored and managed to achieve resilience. After going through these steps, if social capital is well established and strengthened and intervening factors such as the quality of communication do not negatively affect it, it can be hoped that the organization has reached some kind of depth and tranquility, which is called resilience.