Social Capital and Transformational Leadership in Building the Resilience of Local Governance Networks

Abstract

Resilience has become more popular among researchers and practitioners of public governance. Previous studies indicate the importance of social capital and leadership in this research field, but mainly theoretically and rarely are considered together. Therefore, this article aims to analyze the impact of social capital and transformational leadership on the resilience of local governance networks based on a questionnaire conducted among 199 local governments in Poland. The variance-based structural equation modelling (SEM) based on the partial least squares path modelling method (PLS) has been used to analyze the data collected. The obtained results indicate that social capital, primarily relational and cognitive, directly and significantly affects resilience, but transformational leadership impacts indirectly. In addition, the resilience of local governance networks is associated with bouncing back and change. These findings add value to the emerging theory of resilience in public governance and can also be helpful for public professionals.