A Research On Collaborative Innovations Of Local Colleges And Universities From The Perspective Of Social Capital

Local colleges and universities, compared with colleges and universities directly under ministries and commissions of the central government, are institutions of higher education sponsored by the local governments at all levels. Collaborative innovation is an important path to realize the connotative development in local colleges and universities, as well as an inevitable choice to break through the predicament during the development. It is timely for China to launch the collaborative innovation as the main content of "2011plan", which is also of great strategic significance for local colleges and universities. The core principle of "2011plan" is to break the hierarchy of domestic colleges and universities and to encourage the characteristic development, thus providing a historic opportunity for local colleges and universities to achieve the goal of "carry catch up". Collaborative innovation is essentially a social network of science and technology innovation. Local colleges and universities, due to their short history and lack of accumulation, can’t have the same special appeal and attraction as colleges and universities directly under ministries and commissions of the central government, especially in the case of integrating into the regional innovation networks. Lacking the support of a mechanism, the innovation resource management is closed, scattered, inefficient and difficult to form an aggregation effect in local colleges and universities, which as a result restricts the effective development of collaborative innovation.Social capital is an analytical tool which has attracted much attention in the field of sociological research in recent years. Elements it emphasizes, such as the social network relationships, reciprocal norms, trust cooperation and so on, highly conform to the social governance needs of collaborative innovation. The main forms of structure dimension of social capital are network structure and network connection, which are beneficial to all parties to get high quality information; Relationship dimension, characterized by the trust between organizations, is good for organizational learning and knowledge sharing; Cognitive dimension, featured by common values and shared vision, is conductive to different parties to achieve effective communication. Influenced by the three dimensions of social capital, each node of collaborative innovation networks shares interests and risks and therefore maximizes innovation effect through resource sharing and interaction. Social capital, using organizational learning as the intermediary, affects collaborative innovation in that social capital is the realization path and dynamic mechanism of organizational learning, which is conducive to promoting the transformation of tacit knowledge in collaborative innovation and transmitting the source of knowledge for technical innovation. In the organizational learning, learning for use is good for incremental innovation and exploratory study is helpful to evolutional innovation. In addition, social environment, social trust, social culture and social system in the macro level, internal and external social capital in local colleges and universities in the middle level, personal social capital of leaders, teachers and students within local colleges and university in the micro level, can generate social capital of innovation alliance through investment and development, promoting cooperative innovation and performance improvement.Investment and development of social capital is an important force to promote collaborative innovation in local colleges and universities, and the key to realize the goal of collaborative innovation is to establish a mechanism. Guided by the policy of "2011plan", it is an important path to build a scientific, rational, standardized, effective, and dynamic mechanism to promote collaborative innovation in local colleges and universities, regarding the integration of social capital as the starting point. Firstly, the interactive network system should be improved. Through close and shared social network of collaborative innovation, an effective linking mechanism and an efficient communication mechanism can be established and social resources can be accumulated, thus forming a multiparty force involving in collaborative innovation. Secondly, a trust governance mechanism should be promoted. To form a good trust relationship, an internal trust mechanism of strategic alliance in collaborative innovation should be established. The government should coordinate the relationship among parties and a social evaluation mechanism needs to be developed. Thirdly, mutually beneficial social norms should be established. Through the establishment of a fair and reasonable benefit allocation system and an incentive mechanism of collaborative innovation, science and technology and legal systems of collaborative innovation can be promoted and the collaborative innovation network relationship can be consolidated. Fourthly, the community organization is to be fostered. The community organization is an important carrier of generating social capital. The healthy development of civil societies can be achieved by facilitating the government supply, improving the management of community organizations, and strengthening the construction of the community itself. Fifthly, the integration of cultural values should be promoted. By strengthening the construction of campus culture, the culture of union, and the alliance identity, a social environment of collaborative innovation with culture fitting into the innovation network can be established.