The Effect Of Social Capital On Incubation Performance In Incubation Network Based On Polycentric Governance

In the era of knowledge economy,small and medium-sized enterprises especially new technology-based firms,constitute the new motivation for China's development of innovation.Fostering their growth is a strategic deployment for China to narrow the gap with developed economy countries.Although their importance for economy,“liability of newness” limits the development of innovative SMEs to some degree.Incubators can resolve this problem by offering SMEs shared office and equipment,business advice and services,and access to networks.With the increasing complexity of the needs for innovation and entrepreneurship,incubators need to seek network resources to support incubating firms by joining the incubation network.The emergence of regional incubation association,makes the governance of incubation network change from “local government-incubators” to polycentric pattern of “local government-incubators”.By increasing social capital stock and changing resources allocation way in incubation networks,polycentric governance of the incubation network can enhance the capability of incubators to obtain resources from the incubation network,which poses an active role in incubation performance.This paper proposes a conceptual model to explore the relationships among social capital,resource acquisition and incubation performance in incubation network based on polycentric governance.Hypotheses are tested with multiple linear regression analysis and survey data from 181 incubators that have joined regional association in Tianjin and Beijing city.The results indicate that both structural and cognitive social capital affect incubation performance significantly,which is not the case in relational social capital.All of the three dimensions of social capital positively affect resource acquisition.Resource acquisition plays a part in enhancing incubation performance especially social benefits,which are not the case in hatching ability and growth.Structural and cognitive social capital have partially mediating effects on incubation performance through resource acquisition.Resource acquisition does not mediate the relationship between relational social capital and incubation performance.