Enhancing the social capital in industrial work teams: results from a participatory intervention

We investigated the effects of an intervention aiming at enhancing four types of team-level social capital (bonding, bridging and two types of linking social capital) in six dairy plants with a total of 60 teams. Social capital and work engagement was assessed in baseline and follow-up surveys. The follow-up period was approximately 20 months, comprising an intervention period of 12 months. Intervention effects were assessed by comparing changes in team-level mean-scores for teams that had developed action plans with teams that had not. Results show that teams that had developed action plans generally showed a larger increase in social capital and work engagement than other teams. Differences were statistically significant for linking social capital towards the workplace as a whole and work engagement. However, effect sizes indicate an effect of the action plans despite the lack of statistical significance. Moreover, the self-reported level of implementation of the action plans was associated with the size and direction of the observed change.