A qualitative analysis of social intelligence in nonprofit organizations: external knowledge acquisition for human capital development, organizational learning and innovation

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are in crisis due to the introduction of new public management. Social intelligence represents organizational members’ tacit knowledge, abilities and skills to sense and understand the needs of external stakeholders, and constantly interact appropriately with the stakeholders for the benefits of their firm. Using 20 qualitative semi‐structured in‐depth interviews across nine Australian NPOs as the central instrument, this paper argues that social intelligence acts as a catalyst to external knowledge acquisition, which can have a dynamic influence on human capital development and organizational learning for innovation in NPOs. The analysis also reveals that half of the participants’ understandings of social intelligence are different to those commonly contained in the literature. The paper argues that a better understanding of the theory–practice divide of social intelligence is necessary if knowledge management, organizational learning and an intellectual capital‐view of the firm are to be fully integrated.