Scenario Cranes to Build New Cognitive Social Capital

This paper reports exploratory research on building new social capital with scenario planning. The key finding is that scenario planning can be deployed to build new social capital. This is done through a counterfactual process analogous to Normann’s proposed “crane building” whereby a contrasting set of conceptual futures are engaged to reframe the understanding of the context in the present. The emphasis on the conceptual future using scenarios means it is with the cognitive dimension that social capital is built, which has been under-explored in the literature. This paper thus makes three contributions: It provides an empirical example of what Normann proposed; it sheds light on what Maurer and Ebers (2006) termed the “dearth of research” about how organisations can build and reconfigure social capital to address changing strategic circumstances; and it foregrounds the cognitive dimension in building new social capital.