The Value of Intra-organizational Social Capital: How it Fosters Knowledge Transfer, Innovation Performance, and Growth
研究了组织成员的社会资本如何通过知识转移（资源调动、吸收和使用）的中介作用，影响组织的增长和创新绩效，基于德国工程行业的218个项目数据。
While most literature promotes a positive impact of social capital on various organizational performance outcomes, empirical results on the social capital—organizational performance link are not conclusive. We propose that one reason for the discordant findings is that research has largely not accounted for the mediating process steps that translate social capital into organizational performance outcomes. We suggest that organizational performance outcomes of organization members’ social capital hinge on the mediating processes of resource mobilization, assimilation, and use. An empirical study of 218 projects in the German engineering industry supports our theoretical model. Findings show that knowledge transfer (conceptualized as the mobilization, assimilation, and use of knowledge resources) mediates between organization members’ intra-organizational social capital and organizational performance outcomes of growth and innovation performance. The present study thus contributes to a deeper understanding of the value of intra-organizational social capital.