Social Capital, Knowledge Processes And Departmental Performance Empirical Study

With the upgrading of the industrial structure continually and the growing intension of the competition,technological innovation plays a very important role on sustainable development and enhancing core competitiveness of enterprise.So many enterprises innovate in their research and development(R&D) departments. Unfortunately,the facts show that R&D often have high rate of failure,which weakens the enterprise's competence and employees' morale.Then how to improve R&D department effectiveness and success rate of R&D is a pressing problem that enterprises face.Responding to the practical problem,many researchers have deeply researched the propositions of R&D.Though it is clear that R&D is important,it is pity that has little research on R&D department now,not even speak of R&D department effectiveness.Though these researches have enhanced our horizon to some extent, they have not caught the knowledge characteristic of R&D as one of typical knowledge processes.As center of technology and knowledge innovation,the particularity of R&D departments comes from the knowledge characteristic,however, the theory how R&D department effectiveness is determined by the knowledge management is lack.When we learned more about knowledge theory,it even can be found that social capital theory originated from new economic sociology gradually becomes the new important perspective to understand the process of knowledge management.So it is a new way deserved to explore that we research the mechanism of R&D department effectiveness by using department social capital as independent variable and knowledge process as mediators,and the results will make up the theory blank.According to the investigation of social capital,knowledge process,organization effectiveness and other relative literature reviews,the author confirmed some theoretical issues unresolved:What is the construct of department social capital? How does department social capital influence department effectiveness? How does department knowledge process influence department effectiveness? What is the construct of department knowledge process and what kinds of relationship exist between its dimensions? What is the construct of department effectiveness and what kinds of relationship exist between its dimensions?Following the way of "department social capital→department knowledge process→department effectiveness",the author proposed a series of research hypotheses and a theoretical model,and conducted this research with R&D departments through questionnaire and the statistical tool SPSS16.0 and AMOS16.0 to resolve the above issues.The conclusions are summed up as follow:1.The construct of department social capital was explored.Through the literatures review and enterprises interview,the paper defined department social capital as a construct characterized by six dimensions(second-order factors) based on its component,which includes external structural dimension,relational dimension, cognitive dimension,internal structural dimension,relational dimension and cognitive dimension.Every second-order factor is also made up of several first-order factors. Empirical study showed that these measure scales had good reliability and validity.At the same time,this research found there is interaction with six dimensions of department social capital.Besides,this research found external network density explained the most variance of external structural dimension,then external network strength and external network size.As for external relational dimension,external obligation & expectation also explained the most variance,then external network trust. As for external cognitive dimension,external shared value also explained the most variance,then external shared language.As for internal structural dimension,internal network density also explained the most variance,then internal network strength.As for internal relational dimension,trust in supervisor also explained the most variance, then trust in co-workers,trust in organization and internal obligation & expectation. As for internal cognitive dimension,internal shared value also explained the most variance,then internal shared language.2.The construct of department knowledge process and relationship existing between its dimensions were explored.Through the literatures review and enterprises interview,the paper defined department knowledge process as a construct characterized by three dimensions based on its component,which includes knowledge acquisition,knowledge sharing and knowledge integration.Empirical study showed that these measure scales had good reliability and validity.This study discussed the effect of knowledge acquisition on knowledge sharing and knowledge sharing on knowledge integration,and the empirical research found that knowledge acquisition had significant effect on knowledge sharing and knowledge sharing had significant effect on knowledge integration.3.The construct of department effectiveness and relationship existing between its dimensions were explored.Through the literatures review and enterprises interview, the paper defined department effectiveness as a construct characterized by three dimensions based on its component,which includes innovation performance, department commitment and goal attainment.Empirical study showed that these measure scales had good reliability and validity.This study discussed the effect of innovation performance on department commitment and goal attainment on department commitment,and the empirical research found that innovation performance had significant effect on department commitment and goal attainment had significant effect on department commitment.4.The mechanism of department social capital on department effectiveness was explored.This research took department knowledge process as the mediators to explore the intrinsic mechanism of department social capital on department effectiveness,and the results showed that department knowledge process was the full mediator between department social capital and department effectiveness.The results also revealed that,between independent variables and mediating variables,three dimensions of external social capital and internal cognitive dimension had significant effect on knowledge acquisition,when compared,external relational dimension affected knowledge acquisition most;three dimensions of internal social capital had significant effect on knowledge sharing,when compared,internal relational dimension affected knowledge sharing most;internal relational dimension and internal cognitive dimension had significant effect on knowledge integration, when compared,internal relational dimension affected knowledge integration most. Besides,the relationship of first-order factors of department social capital and department knowledge process was tested,and some results were got.Between mediating variables and dependent variables,three dimensions of department knowledge process had significant effect on innovation performance,when compared, knowledge sharing affected innovation performance most;three dimensions of department knowledge process had significant effect on department commitment, when compared,knowledge integration affected department commitment most;three dimensions of department knowledge process had significant effect on goal attainment, when compared,knowledge integration affected goal attainment most.5.The moderate effect of R&D input was tested.The level of R&D input was introduced as moderating variable to further understanding about the relationship mechanism.With the clustering analysis,the sample was divided into two groups by high and low level of R&D input.According to comparative analysis,it was found that there was significant different influence on the relationship between the two groups.The influence of department social capital on department knowledge process in high R&D input level group was bigger than that in low R&D input level group, and the influence of department knowledge process on innovation performance and goal attainment in high R&D input level group was also stronger than that in low R&D input level group,but it was not apply to department commitment.Department commitment of high R&D input level group was more influenced by innovation performance and knowledge integration,while that of low R&D input level group was more affected by goal attainment,knowledge acquisition and knowledge sharing.6.Other factors that influence department knowledge process and department effectiveness were identified.Department knowledge process was the mediator variable,and department effectiveness was the dependent variable in the theoretical model.There are many other factors that influence these variables.The research took department level variables such as department age,size,human resource,R&D fund, employee salary,and organizational variables such as firm property,sector,age and size etc.,as control variables,and analyzed their influence on the mediator variable and the dependent variable.Then a series of results were got.These above conclusions not only revealed some development in theory,but also had significant meaning to management practice.The results of this study enriched theories of social capital,knowledge management and organization effectiveness. Finally,the theoretical progresses and practical implications were discussed,as well as the limitations of this study and the directions for future research.