• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.11
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• pp.133-143
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• 2021

This study investigates the relationship between social capital and enterprise performance with knowledge sharing as the mediator. By employing the data of 677 respondents collected from delivering questionnaires to small and medium-size firms in Vietnam in 2020, this study suggests a two-step approach that combines exploration factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and path analysis (SEM). The empirical findings significantly support our proposed model by demonstrating that knowledge sharing mediates the connection between all three elements of social capital and enterprise performance. At the same time, the results emphasize the importance of knowledge sharing as a major benefit of social capital and a substantial driving element of both operational and financial performance. The results show that all three social capital qualities (structural, relational, and cognitive) significantly impact both tacit and explicit knowledge sharing, while knowledge is one of the main routes connecting social capital to enterprise performance. Hence, our research model may be used in future studies to evaluate social capital, knowledge sharing, and firm performance as a new theoretical model. Our results offer a plausible explanation for how social capital improves knowledge sharing and enterprise performance.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.129-146
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• 2008

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of knowledge management on the organizational performance by using structural equation model and to suggest new integrated framework about knowledge management by understanding the determinants of organizational capability to knowledge management in social capital point of view. To serve the purpose of this study, we conducted the extensive survey on 256 Korean companies in diverse industries including the manufacturing. Specifically, from the empirical result of this study, we identified that knowledge management performs more actively as the level of social capital increases, and the company that achieve knowledge management actively shows relatively higher performance than one that do not. On the other hand, among the sub-factors composing the social capital, Vision/Purpose/Value and Norms of Reciprocity directly affect to the organizational performance without knowledge management.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.117-135
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• 2013

In a contemporary organization, the role of social capital has been increasingly important in sharpening knowledge management practices. The primary objective of this paper is to propose a research model to measure the effects of social capital on individual performance. The model also investigates the mediating mechanism of knowledge acquisition and knowledge transformation, both of which are critical in fostering an enterprise's absorptive capacity. The field data was collected from a knowledge-centric organization. The analysis result reveals that shared goal is crucial in enabling knowledge processes. Furthermore, it is found that knowledge transformation rather than knowledge acquisition is more likely to lead to individual task performance.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.183-200
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• 2014

Online brand communities have become a major component of marketing strategy given that these communities encourage participation and share the culture of Web 2.0 core concepts to Internet users. This study investigated the effects of social capital and knowledge quality on the success of online brand communities. A research model suggests that trust among members and the identification derived from social capital theory and knowledge quality influence individual community participation; knowledge quality also influences brand trust. In turn, community participation and brand trust develop brand loyalty. The model was empirically analyzed using structural equation modeling with data from online brand community members in Korea. The results indicate that identification and knowledge quality significantly affects brand trust and brand loyalty through community participation. This study provides a basis for developing a success model for online brand communities. Also, this study identifies a new role of knowledge quality in an online brand community context.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.55-69
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• 2012

This paper developed measurement indices for intellectual capital of public R&D organizations and investigated causal relationships among the components. We developed 10 measurement factors and 37 indicators and confirmed the reliability of these measurements. We offered an alternative to the existing model for searching causal relationships. From our survey research, using the structural equation model, we found a new relationship. In contrast to the existing model, we found a cycling relationship among three variables: human capital causes structural capital, structural capital causes relational capital, and relational capital causes human capital.

• Proceedings of the Korea Technology Innovation Society Conference
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• 2006.05a
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• pp.3-17
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• 2006

Ideas do not become exhausted, and there are no diminishing returns in the creation of knowledge. Nonetheless, growth ultimately ceases in this simplest model of endogeneous innovation. But, if we treat knowledge capital as a public capital considering of its non-appropriable benefits, economic growth can be sustained in the economy. We showed that considering goodness of fit of regression model, we can see that the empirical evidence is strongly in favor of the character of knowledge as the public knowledge capital. So, we can expect that by product differentiation, economic growth can be sustained in the Korean economy.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.75-97
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• 2012

Knowledge residing in the heads of employees has always been regarded as one of the most critical resources within a firm. However, many tries to facilitate knowledge transfer among employees has been unsuccessful because of the motivational and cognitive problems between the knowledge source and the recipient. Social capital, which is defined as "the sum of the actual and potential resources embedded within, available through, derived from the network of relationships possessed by an individual or social unit [Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998]," is suggested to resolve these motivational and cognitive problems of knowledge transfer. In Social capital theory, there are two research streams. One insists that social capital strengthens group solidarity and brings up cooperative behaviors among group members, such as voluntary help to colleagues. Therefore, social capital can motivate an expert to transfer his/her knowledge to a colleague in need without any direct reward. The other stream insists that social capital provides an access to various resources that the owner of social capital doesn't possess directly. In knowledge transfer context, an employee with social capital can access and learn much knowledge from his/her colleagues. Therefore, social capital provides benefits to both the knowledge source and the recipient in different ways. However, prior research on knowledge transfer and social capital is mostly limited to either of the research stream of social capital and covered only the knowledge source's or the knowledge recipient's perspective. Social network theory which focuses on the structural dimension of social capital provides clear explanation about the in-depth mechanisms of social capital's two different benefits. 'Strong tie' builds up identification, trust, and emotional attachment between the knowledge source and the recipient; therefore, it motivates the knowledge source to transfer his/her knowledge to the recipient. On the other hand, 'weak tie' easily expands to 'diverse' knowledge sources because it does not take much effort to manage. Therefore, the real value of 'weak tie' comes from the 'diverse network structure,' not the 'weak tie' itself. It implies that the two different perspectives on strength of ties can co-exist. For example, an extroverted employee can manage many 'strong' ties with 'various' colleagues. In this regards, the individual-level structure of one's relationships as well as the dyadic-level relationship should be considered together to provide a holistic view of social capital. In addition, interaction effect between individual-level characteristics and dyadic-level characteristics can be examined, too. Based on these arguments, this study has following research questions. (1) How does the social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient influence knowledge transfer respectively? (2) How does the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient influence knowledge transfer? (3) How does the social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient influence the effect of the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient on knowledge transfer? Based on Social capital theory and Social network theory, a multi-level research model is developed to consider both the individual-level social capital of the knowledge source and the recipient and the dyadic-level strength of relationship between the knowledge source and the recipient. 'Cross-classified random effect model,' one of the multi-level analysis methods, is adopted to analyze the survey responses from 337 R&D employees. The results of analysis provide several findings. First, among three dimensions of the knowledge source's social capital, network centrality (i.e., structural dimension) shows the significant direct effect on knowledge transfer. On the other hand, the knowledge recipient's network centrality is not influential. Instead, it strengthens the influence of the strength of ties between the knowledge source and the recipient on knowledge transfer. It means that the knowledge source's network centrality does not directly increase knowledge transfer. Instead, by providing access to various knowledge sources, the network centrality provides only the context where the strong tie between the knowledge source and the recipient leads to effective knowledge transfer. In short, network centrality has indirect effect on knowledge transfer from the knowledge recipient's perspective, while it has direct effect from the knowledge source's perspective. This is the most important contribution of this research. In addition, contrary to the research hypothesis, company tenure of the knowledge recipient negatively influences knowledge transfer. It means that experienced employees do not look for new knowledge and stick to their own knowledge. This is also an interesting result. One of the possible reasons is the hierarchical culture of Korea, such as a fear of losing face in front of subordinates. In a research methodology perspective, multi-level analysis adopted in this study seems to be very promising in management research area which has a multi-level data structure, such as employee-team-department-company. In addition, social network analysis is also a promising research approach with an exploding availability of online social network data.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.207-221
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• 2014

Due to the awareness for the importance of social capital, many researches have investigated that social capital contributes to the successful implementation of product innovation. Although most researchers tried to model the effect of social capital on product innovation as a linear relation, we consider it too simplistic and fuzzy because knowledge utilization which ultimately leads to product innovation should exist in the relationship between social capital and product innovation. Using 107 survey data, this study found there is a partial mediating effect of knowledge utilization on the link between structure aspect of social capital and product innovation (i.e., new product development and improvement in existing products). Next, this study reported knowledge utilization does act as a perfect mediating variable on the link between awareness aspect of social capital and improvement of existing products, but act as a partial mediating variable on the link between awareness aspect of social capital and new product development. Finally, this study found that knowledge utilization does not act as a mediating variable on the link between relation aspect of social capita and product innovation.

• Knowledge Management Research
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.129-145
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• 2014

As a community of practice (CoP) is known to facilitate team learning, it is increasingly important to understand the mechanisms of CoP, thereby enabling organizations to fully utilize it and optimize its benefits. To explain how CoP improves organizational performance, we focus on its effects on social capital and knowledge management activities, and propose a research model suggesting that shared goals and trust in CoP improve its performance through knowledge integration. Our analysis uses structural equation modeling, with field data collected from 372 members of 46 CoPs in three companies; the analysis validates our research model. Our findings also suggest that CoP diversity can strengthen the link between knowledge integration and CoP performance.

• Asia pacific journal of information systems
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.53-74
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• 2012

A challenge in fostering virtual communities is the continuous supply of knowledge, namely members' willingness to contribute knowledge to their communities. Previous research argues that giving away knowledge eventually causes the possessors of that knowledge to lose their unique value to others, benefiting all except the contributor. Furthermore, communication within virtual communities involves a large number of participants with different social backgrounds and perspectives. The establishment of mutual understanding to comprehend conversations and foster knowledge contribution in virtual communities is inevitably more difficult than face-to-face communication in a small group. In spite of these arguments, evidence suggests that individuals in virtual communities do engage in social behaviors such as knowledge contribution. It is important to understand why individuals provide their valuable knowledge to other community members without a guarantee of returns. In virtual communities, knowledge is inherently rooted in individual members' experiences and expertise. This personal nature of knowledge requires social interactions between virtual community members for knowledge transfer. This study employs the social capital theory in order to account for interpersonal relationship factors and identity theory for individual and group factors that may affect knowledge contribution. First, social capital is the relationship capital which is embedded within the relationships among the participants in a network and available for use when it is needed. Social capital is a productive resource, facilitating individuals' actions for attainment. Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1997) identify three dimensions of social capital and explain theoretically how these dimensions affect the exchange of knowledge. Thus, social capital would be relevant to knowledge contribution in virtual communities. Second, existing research has addressed the importance of identity in facilitating knowledge contribution in a virtual context. Identity in virtual communities has been described as playing a vital role in the establishment of personal reputations and in the recognition of others. For instance, reputation systems that rate participants in terms of the quality of their contributions provide a readily available inventory of experts to knowledge seekers. Despite the growing interest in identities, however, there is little empirical research about how identities in the communities influence knowledge contribution. Therefore, the goal of this study is to better understand knowledge contribution by examining the roles of social capital and identity in virtual communities. Based on a theoretical framework of social capital and identity theory, we develop and test a theoretical model and evaluate our hypotheses. Specifically, we propose three variables such as cohesiveness, reciprocity, and commitment, referring to the social capital theory, as antecedents of knowledge contribution in virtual communities. We further posit that members with a strong identity (self-presentation and group identification) contribute more knowledge to virtual communities. We conducted a field study in order to validate our research model. We collected data from 192 members of virtual communities and used the PLS method to analyse the data. The tests of the measurement model confirm that our data set has appropriate discriminant and convergent validity. The results of testing the structural model show that cohesion, reciprocity, and self-presentation significantly influence knowledge contribution, while commitment and group identification do not significantly influence knowledge contribution. Our findings on cohesion and reciprocity are consistent with the previous literature. Contrary to our expectations, commitment did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This result may be due to the fact that knowledge contribution was voluntary in the virtual communities in our sample. Another plausible explanation for this result may be the self-selection bias for the survey respondents, who are more likely to contribute their knowledge to virtual communities. The relationship between self-presentation and knowledge contribution was found to be significant in virtual communities, supporting the results of prior literature. Group identification did not significantly affect knowledge contribution in this study, inconsistent with the wealth of research that identifies group identification as an important factor for knowledge sharing. This conflicting result calls for future research that examines the role of group identification in knowledge contribution in virtual communities. This study makes a contribution to theory development in the area of knowledge management in general and virtual communities in particular. For practice, the results of this study identify the circumstances under which individual factors would be effective for motivating knowledge contribution to virtual communities.