The effects of internal and external social capital on product innovation performance: A dynamic capabilities approach

• Main Authors: Yong-Sheng Chang, 張雍昇
• Other Authors: 方世榮
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/06180667114857331735

博士 === 國立中興大學 === 企業管理學系所 === 97 === Recent research contends that resources transformed by dynamic capabilities facilitate the creation of competitive advantage. However, this argument merely raises new questions, including the origin of resources, the processes by which they are transformed so as to benefit firms, and the relationship between resource abundance and competitive advantage. In resource learning theory, managers must recombine firm resources, since managing resources and capabilities is essential to sustainable competitive advantage. This study applies the concept of resource learning theory, in which the management of resources delineates the manner in which resources are acquired and accumulated, while the resource of management implies that a firm transforms resources using dynamic capabilities for the sake of improving performance. Dynamic capabilities comprise two transformational mechanisms, sensemaking and reconfiguring. That is to say, firms convert resources through communication, interpretation, analysis, and reconfiguration. Furthermore, previous studies have failed to understand the “black box” involved in using valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable resources to gain and maintain competitive advantage. This study has attempted to untangle that black box and explain how these resources can be obtained and managed to create superior product innovation performance for firms, in turn helping them develop competitive advantage. The components of dynamic capabilities proposed in this study help fill this void. This study investigates the moderating role of dynamic capabilities in the relationships between internal and external social capital and product innovation performance, an area with potential to explain the divergent empirical results contained in the existing literature on the relationship between social capital and performance. This study used hierarchical moderated regression analysis for hypotheses testing. Employing an original data set comprising 169 firms operating in the Taiwan Hsinchu Science Park, this study found that the combination of dynamic capabilities and internal/external social capital helps improve product innovation performance. Furthermore, internal social capital is positively related to product innovation performance, but no equivalent relationship for external social capital. Overall, these findings contribute to better understanding that “the key to the management of resources is the resource of management” (Mahoney, 1995, p. 92).