The effects of social capital on knowledge heterogeneity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of social capital on knowledge heterogeneity in order to advance the understanding of the effects and to reconcile existing inconsistent findings. Design/methodology/approach Survey data collected from 105 new product development (NPD) p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Management decision 2019-05, Vol.57 (5), p.1237-1253
Main Authors: Tsai, Fu-Sheng, Hsu, I-Chieh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Hypotheses
Investigations
Knowledge management
Portfolio management
Product development
R&D
Research & development
Social capital
Social networks
Studies
Teams
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Summary:Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the influences of social capital on knowledge heterogeneity in order to advance the understanding of the effects and to reconcile existing inconsistent findings. Design/methodology/approach Survey data collected from 105 new product development (NPD) projects were analyzed with regression-based methods. Findings The results indicated that trust, centralization and shared vision as the three social capital dimensions generally have negative impacts on the domain and presentation dimensions of knowledge heterogeneity. However, the three dimensions of social capital do not exhibit consistent influences on the tacitness heterogeneity (i.e. an epistemological dimension of knowledge heterogeneity). Research limitations/implications More research is needed to explore the role of social capital dimensions in developing a range of knowledge attributes of NPD teams, among which knowledge heterogeneity is one. The various dimensions of knowledge an NPD team possesses should have performance implications and deserve future investigation. Originality/value The study is one of the first documented attempts to demonstrate contingencies in the relationship between social capital and knowledge heterogeneity. The effect of social capital on knowledge heterogeneity should be understood at the level of dimensions of the two respective constructs.
ISSN:0025-1747
1758-6070
DOI:10.1108/MD-12-2016-0909