February/March 2018 ■ Project Management Journal 79 PAPERS Project Management Journal, Vol. 49, No. 1, 79–95 © 2018 by the Project Management Institute Published online at www.pmi.org/PMJ The implementation of large-scale technol- ogy projects is still fraught with failures resulting in tremendous costs to organiza- tions. One of the factors that is widely rec- ognized as critical for achieving technology implementation success (and, for that mat- ter, projects in general) is top management commitment. The actual mechanisms by which top management impacts project suc- cess, however, have not received much atten- tion in the project management literature. We use a case study approach here to illustrate how social capital theory provides a useful lens for understanding how top manage- ment’s actions impact project success and show how project success is strengthened by the enhancement of social capital through top management commitment. We employ causal maps to clarify, illustrate, and visual- ize the complex interactions between top management commitment and social capi- tal in facilitating project success. This study contributes to the literature and theory on the mechanisms by which top management commitment influences project success by offering propositions for future research. KEYWORDS: enterprise-wide technology; top management commitment; project success; social capital; culture; trust; norms and values INTRODUCTION C ompanies continue to engage in technology implementation. Despite advances in technology, as well as project management know-how, technology implementation project failures still abound. We cite a few technology implementation failures below but many more make front-page news daily, including the very public Obamacare “go live” systems issues a few years ago in the United States. Other examples of recent technology implementation failures, as reported in Computerworld between 2012 and 2013, include: 1. The U. S. Air Force announced the cancellation of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) project that had already cost US$1 billion (Thibodeau, 2013); 2. Avantor Performance Materials lodged a suit against IBM in November 2011 because of problems with the implementation of an SAP-based soft- ware system; 3. Major Brands, a beverage distributor, sued Epicor in 2013 because their ERP project was deemed useless after a two-year effort (Thibodeau, 2013); and 4. A project created to modernize case management within the California court system was scrapped even after the state had spent over US$300 million on the software (Kanaracus, 2012). These failures continue to occur despite the fact that the domain of knowledge on technology implementation as well as on project management continues to increase. The functionality of the technology being implemented has risen, the skills of the people involved in technology implementation projects have increased, and the technological capabilities of organizations have improved (Hardaway, Harryvan, Wang, & Goodson, 2016). Yet, we con- tinue to see too many technology implementation project failures; thus, more detailed studies on technology implementation are required to enhance our understanding of how to implement these projects successfully. The project management literature abounds with studies on the critical success factors (CSFs) for projects (Young & Poon, 2013; Boonstra, 2013; Shao, Feng, & Liu, 2012; Müller & Turner, 2007; Nah, Lau, & Kuang, 2001; Willcocks & Stykes, 2000; Bingi, Sharma, & Godla, 1999); however, very few studies address the mechanisms by which these factors influence project Using a Social Capital Lens to Identify the Mechanisms of Top Management Commitment: A Case Study of a Technology Project Kwasi Amoako-Gyampah, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA Jack Meredith, Wake-Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA Kathy White Loyd, Arkansas State University, Jonesboro, Arkansas, USA ABSTRACT ■