External Social Capital, Inter-Organizational Knowledge Trading and Enterprise Innovation Performance in Supply Chain: Evidence from Manufacturing Enterprises in China

Abstract

Based on perspective of cooperative innovation in supply chain, a conceptual model for the effect of external social capital, inter-organizational knowledge trading on enterprise innovation performance is proposed and empirically tested using the data collected from 256 enterprises in supply chain through the structural equation modeling. The external social capital consists of external cognitive capital, external relationship capital, external structure capital and external position capital in this paper. Inter-organizational knowledge trading is divided into explicit knowledge trading and tacit knowledge trading. The results show that external structure capital and external position capital have significant positive impact on explicit knowledge trading, tacit knowledge trading and enterprise innovation performance. External cognitive capital has significant positive impact on explicit knowledge trading and tacit knowledge trading, it does not impact enterprise innovation performance significantly. Although external relationship capital has significant positive impact on tacit knowledge trading, it does not impact explicit knowledge trading and enterprise innovation performance significantly. Finally, we also find that explicit knowledge trading and tacit knowledge trading have significant positive impact on enterprise innovation performance.