Social Capital and its impact on the Research Productivity of a State University

Abstract

This paper explored how a state university can use its social capital to enhance its research productivity. As a concept, social capital suggests that people or organizations with the right type and kind of social networks are in a better position to attain their objectives compared to others belonging to a different kind of social network. That people or organization with the right kind of connection can occupy and use their position in their social network to address organizational concerns faster and much more effectively (Burt, 2000; Portes, 1998 as cited by Oh, 2004). As such, the social network theory proposes that one’s network can enhance one’s competitive edge by exchanging, replacing or combining their different organizational resources (Galunic and Rodan, 1998; Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). One’s social capital can either be structural, relational or cognitive or its combinations (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Tsai and Ghoshal (1998) furthered Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s framework when they examined how the different aspects of social capital can influence the transfer and knowledge exchanges among the different members of the network. Similarly, this paper proposes that the social capital of a unit can positively influence the research performance and output of a unit or an individual. Results validated Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s Model which states that the presence of the structural and cognitive dimensions of social capital is important to the development of the relational dimension in organizations and the presence of the three dimensions is important to resource exchange and combinations. When viewed against the research performance of the university, it implies that individuals and those who have developed their structural, relational and cognitive capitals are better able to access, share, and exchange resources with others for better research performances. This further implies that a challenge for any research unit is how to motivate stronger interaction among project team members to generate more research output.