A Study On The Influence Of Social Capital And Absorptive Capacity To Firm’s Innovation Performance

In the era of knowledge economy, the total quantity of knowledge grows fast and the diffusion of knowledge accelerates dramatically. The content and form of knowledge changes importantly, and knowledge which is accumulated or owned by a single enterprise has been unable to meet the demand for innovation, therefore, competitive advantages of the enterprise more depend on its ability to access to and use new knowledge. Because acquisition and development of knowledge is a social process, enterprises must strengthen cooperation with outside organizations and knowledge sharing among internal members if they want to acquire and use knowledge to gain a competitive advantage. Through the close interaction with external actors, enterprises may gain the necessary fund and information, and more importantly they can increase the depth, scope and efficiency of knowledge exchange among internal members, in other words, by promoting exchange of ideas and feelings among members of them, enterprises able to speed up dissemination and use of new knowledge within the enterprises. Therefore, focusing on how social capital and knowledge activities influence innovation becomes trend of research gradually.On the basis of existing literatures, this thesis refines the dimensions of corporate social capital, and develops a model to deduce how corporate social capital and absorptive capacity impact the corporate innovation performance. In the thesis, corporate social capital is divided into six dimensions, namely the structural dimension, relational dimension and cognitive dimension of external social dimensions and structural dimensions, relational dimension and cognitive dimension of internal social capital, at the same time, external social interaction, cognition-based trust and shared language are the indicators of three dimensions of external social capital respectively, and internal social interaction, affect-based trust and shared vision are the indicators of three dimensions of external social capital respectively. This theoretical model includes explanatory variable(corporate social capital), intermediary variables(potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity), moderator variable(knowledge internalization), explained variable(corporate innovation performance), control variables(nature of the enterprises, industry, size, area, age and environmental dynamism) and corresponding paths.The empirical analysis of this thesis is mainly composed of three stages. In the first phase, exploratory factor analysis constitutes the major content, through analysis of the reliability and validity, items are sifted, and then the final questionnaire is formed; In the second phase, descriptive statistical analysis of respondents’basic information is performed, and confirmatory factor analysis is used to examine the quality of469samples; In the third stage, structural equation modeling and multiple linear regression are used to verify the theoretical model and the hypotheses. Besides, this thesis chooses a typical enterprise for the confirmatory case analysis.Based on the empirical study and case study, this thesis draws some conclusions:(1)There is moderating role of knowledge internalization on relation of knowledge acquisition to knowledge application;(2)Compared with shared language, cognition-based trust has more directly positive impact on knowledge identification;(3)Compared with shared language, external social interaction has more directly positive impact on knowledge acquisition;(4)Compared with affect-based trust, shared vision has more directly positive impact on knowledge sharing;(5)Internal social interaction restrains knowledge sharing;(6)Affect-based trust has directly positive impact on knowledge application;(7)Absorptive capacity partially mediates the influence of social capital on the innovation performance.Finally, this thesis systematically illustrates the theoretic progress of the research and directive significance to practices of the enterprises, and it also points out the limitations of the research and gives directions for the follow-up researches.