| Regional technological innovation has become a key factor in regional economicgrowth. For the regional technical innovation, the majority of our scholars study it fromthe increasing investment in physical capital, improving the level of human capital andstrengthening supports of financial institutions, but studying it from the perspective ofsocial capital is not enough. Strengthening the study of social capital and in-depthunderstanding the impact of social capital on regional technological innovation haveimportant theoretical and practical significance for our building an innovation-orientedcountry and improving the regional innovation system.The definition and measurement of social capital yet has no universal consensus, somost of the studies of the impact of social capital on regional technological innovationbelong to qualitative analysis and the number of studies by empirical methods is small. Inaddition, most existing researches base on the enterprise level, yet the study of the impactof social capital on regional technological innovation based on the regional level is stillrelatively scarce. Based on the theory of social capital and technological innovation in thispaper, the empirical analysis of the effect of social capital on our regional technologicalinnovation by using Chinese provincial panel data is finished, which not only expands thescope of application of social capital but also provides a new perspective for the study ofregional technical innovation.In order to specifically study the impact of social capital on our regionaltechnological innovation, this paper firstly defines social capital and regional technologicalinnovation. Subsequently, this paper describes positive and negative impacts of socialcapital on regional technological innovation. Positive impacts mainly contain three aspects:enhancing regional innovation cooperation among members, reducing uncertainty oftechnological innovation, and helping to get innovative resources. Negative impactsmainly include the following aspects: hindering individual free development andcommunication with the outside area, causing the regional technological innovation to fallinto “path dependence”.Social capital is divided into structural dimensions and cognitive dimensions in thispaper, which are respectively measured by quantity of social organizations and trust.Technological innovation is divided into technology development stage and technologyapplication stage, which are respectively measured by patent applications accepted and the value of contract deals in technical markets. In order to study the impact of social capitalon regional technological innovation effectively, the R&D expenditures, R&D personnelinputs, and the amount of FDI actually utilized are introduced as control variables in thispaper. Finally, the individual fixed-effect regression model is proved to be appropriateafter F test and Hausman test, then conclude final models with cross-section weight andstepwise regression. By analyzes the results of model, we can conclude that social capitaland regional technological innovation has certain relevance. The cognitive dimension ofsocial capital both has positive effects on two stages of technological innovation. Thestructural dimension of social capital has positive effects on the number of patentapplications, yet the impact of it on the value of contract deals in technical markets is notobvious.Finally, this paper points out the problems that exist in our social capital，and thenpolicy suggestions that aiming to optimize social capital are provided in order to promoteregional technological innovation according to the research results. |
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