Linking social capital to organizational growth

In the current discussion of the intellectual capital, three main themes have been brought up: intangible assets, the dynamic capabilities to create and modify these assets, and the social relationships in which the knowledge processes take place, that is social capital. Within the latter view, knowledge is understood as a socially constructed and shared resource, and the focus is on the characteristics of the social relationships connecting the various actors and on the benefits these bring to the participants. Even though it is widely agreed that knowledge is essentially social by nature and that social capital does matter to the corporate bottom line, there are relatively few previous studies that have empirically examined the impact of social capital on organizational growth. To bridge this gap, the paper empirically examines how social capital residing in both intra-organizational and inter-organizational relationships of firms is related with organizational growth. The results suggest that contrary to the theoretical claims in the existing literature, social capital has only meagre role in promoting organizational growth.     

The impact of intellectual capital management on company competitiveness and financial performance

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - Most of the existing research on intellectual capital (IC) has concentrated on identifying the key intangible resources and measuring their level in...     

Exploring the role of human capital,renewal capital and entrepreneurial capital in innovation performance in high-tech and low-tech firms

According to past research, intellectual capital (IC) is a key driver of innovation performance and subsequent competitive advantage. Given the human nature of innovation activities (i.e. human beings produce innovations), human capital (HC) deserves special attention. Although researchers in the past have analysed the HC–innovation linkage, we still do not have a detailed understanding of how specific human capabilities affect innovation. Furthermore, the technology level of the firm could generate major differences in the HC–innovation relationship as it influences both the type of knowledge prevalent within the company and the radicalness of the innovations developed. Nevertheless, former literature has largely omitted technology level when studying the IC–innovation linkage. To fill this research gap, this study examines the role of human attributes, including knowledge, skills and motivation (i.e. traditional HC), learning capability (i.e. renewal capital) and entrepreneurial attitude (i.e. entrepreneurial capital) on innovation in high-tech versus low-tech companies. To that end, survey data from 180 Spanish companies were analysed by means of structural equation modelling based on partial least squares. The results obtained confirm that the influence of HC, renewal capital and entrepreneurial capital on innovation differs depending on the technology level.