Study About The Influence Of Social Capital On Agricultural Technology Innovation Teams’ Effectiveness

Since the Nineteen eighties, technological innovation has gradually shifted from the individual innovation to team innovation. The team can adapt the characteristics and requirements of technical innovation in the era of knowledge economy, because it can assemble people, money and things from different disciplines and regions. Some of the existing research has proved that social capital including communication, trust, leadership, informal relationship in and out of the team, shared vision can influence the teams’ effectiveness. The practice has proved that in the process of innovation, communication among team members, trust, the attitude of the leader can greatly influence the teams’ innovation. Because the practice of agricultural technology innovation team is late, the research is also limited, especially the systemic and comprehensive research between social capital and technological innovation teams’ effectiveness is still lacking. The purpose of this research is to study the influence of social capital on agricultural technology innovation teams’effectiveness, to improve the theory of social capital and improve its universality. Theoretical guidance can be provided for the further development of agricultural technology innovation teams and practical guidance can be provided both for the government to promote the development of technology innovation team and the teams’self-improvement.The context of this paper is the global technology innovation based on the team and becoming cluster. It is guided by the theory of social capital, technological innovation and sociology of organization. The agricultural technology innovation team is taken as the research object. Based on the definition of the concepts of social capital and team effectiveness, the concepts and indexes of structural dimension, the relational dimension, the cognitive dimension of social capital, task performance and contextual performance are proposed. The relationships among the dimensions of social capital are analysed and supposed. The theoretical framework of the influence of social capital and its dimensions on team effectiveness and its aspects is built. The theoretical analysis about the influence of social capital on team effectiveness is done. The theoretical hypotheses about the influence of social capital on teams’ effectiveness are put forward. Combine with the practice of agricultural technology innovation team in the demonstration project of agricultural technology innovating industry chain of Sichuan province. Statistical analysis is performed by using the collected data in the survey. The reliability and validity of the data is evaluated. The method of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to examine the structure of social capital and team effectiveness. Finally, the data of team level is gotten. The methods of correlation analysis, multiple linear regression analysis and path analysis are used to inspect the theoretical assumptions of the influence of social capital on the efficiency of agricultural technology innovation teams. The conclusions are gotten. Niche targeting and strong operation suggestions are put forward. The main conclusions of this paper are:1. The three dimensions of social capital:structural dimension relational dimension and cognitive dimension have directional relationship. Among them, structural dimension of social capital is fundamental, structural dimension of social capital has positive impact on the relational dimension and cognitive dimension of social capital. Cognitive dimension of social capital has positive impact on the relational dimension of social capital.2. The effectiveness of team includes two aspects:task performance and contextual performance, the two can be distinguished in the overall structure, each has different dimensions, but the influence coefficient between task performance and contextual performance is big, so there is high interaction between them.3. As to the total amount of social capital, its influence on the total amount of team effectiveness is positive and significant.4. Structural dimension of social capital has a direct and positive influence on team effectiveness and its two aspects. It has indirect influence on the task performance and contextual performance.5. The influence of cognitive dimension of social capital on team effectiveness is not significant. It has negative influence on task performance, and it is the intrmediaary of structural dimension of social capital’s influence on task performance. It has direct and indirect influence on contextual performance.6. The influence of relational dimension of social capital on team effectiveness and task performance are not significant. It has direct and positive influence on contextual performance, and it plays the role of bridge on the indirect influence of structural dimension and cognitive dimensions of social capital on contextual performance.According to the above, the following suggestions can be put forward. First, pay attention to the cultivation and development of structural dimension of social capital in the agricultural technology innovation teams. Within the team, strengthen the links between members, form internal network taking team leader as the center, keep relatively stable situation of team members. This can make foundation for the exchange of resources and information in the team. Pay attention to the development of external network of the team, providing opportunity for the team to acquire external resources and information. Secondly, give full play to the positive influence of cognitive dimensions of social capital on contextual performance, restrain and avoid its adverse influence. On one hand, the common language and cognitive pattern should be formed within the team, making the team goals as the ultimate guide. Improve the creativity of the team and provide more support for members, raise their satisfaction about the work and organization; on the other hand, protect the innovation spirit and innovation ability of individual members to let the team have the power of innovation; Third, give full play to the direct positive effect and the intermediary role of relational dimension of social capital on contextual performance. Within the team, improve the business and management ability of the leader, enhance psychological safety of the members, raise their confidence about the leader and satisfaction about the work, at the same time, promote extensive and in-depth exchanges among members, forming trusting atmosphere among them. The interaction will be more open and liberal. The members’ satisfaction about work and their organizational identity will be raised. In outside of the team, improve the level of mutual trust between members and the outer bodies, increase the probability to get the information and limited resources. This can enhance the expectation of the members about the development of the team and the continuing cooperation. Finally, in the cultivation of teams’ internal social capital and external social capital, proper proportion should be maintained to balance the two aspects’ occupation in time and effort.There are three innovations in this paper:(1) The structure of social capital and the interaction mechanism are clarified. The directional relations between different dimensions of social capital are gotten, making the theory of social capital become perfect;(2) The influence paths of social capital on team effectiveness are cleared. The intermediary roles of relational dimension and cognitive dimension of social capital on team performance are analysed, especially the bridge role played by relational dimension of social capital will influence the influencing extent of social capital on team effectiveness as a whole;(3) Entropy approach is adopted to get the data of the total amount of social capital and team effectiveness. The direction and extent of influence made by the total amount of social capital on the total amount of team effectiveness are also gotten, to make up the existing research in the aspect that the structure effect analysis is taken seriously but the total effect analysis is deficient.