Chapter 10: Social Capital as a Tool for Managing Human Resources in Agile Entrepreneurial Organisations

Careful investment of social and human capital within the organisation structure has been believed to improve the performance of the workforce and firms and is also observed to have a constructive impact on the firm and employee performance. A superior human capital and social capital is the accelerator of a firm’s growth. While entrepreneurial firms are agile in themselves, they need to have strong ties with their customers, clients, teams/employees, investors, ecosystem and industry experts, debtors, vendors, subcontractors, etc. and here the need and benefits of social skills not only among owners/founders but also in their teams and employees are always in high demand. A young enterprise faces many challenges, the same as any giant corporate firm. Founders often experience that they are working against the clock in managing both business and human resource challenges, even though they do agree that the entrepreneurial-agile and high-performance-driven culture should not be a substitute for an ethical-courageous-people-friendly culture. This chapter discusses various challenges and issues faced by small and medium businesses and employees of small business firms at their level, and how both parties collectively are trying to support and overcome these challenges, so as to make the work as effective as possible. The chapter is prepared through a comprehensive literature review and data/information has been derived from various secondary sources with a discussion with some start-up founders and small business owners. The chapter also focused on other challenges such as related to human resource development practices, innovation, decision making, and the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on some small businesses are also discussed. The chapter also shares recommended solutions to alter current practices, policies, and processes which can help in addressing operative challenges and can help in developing sustainable practices.