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The effects of social capital and organizational innovativeness in different institutional contexts

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Abstract

This paper examines how social capital and organizational innovativeness influence business performance through their separate, indirect, or interactive effects, and how these effects differ across the institutional contexts of a transition economy and a market economy. In line with institutional theory, our findings show that the effects of social capital are more extensive and probably more malignant in a transition economy than in a market economy. Furthermore, different types of organizational innovativeness, as corporate culture, can be cultivated by different forms of social capital in different institutional contexts. The implications for institutional theory and social capital theory, and the managerial implications, are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the helpful comments of Kwaku Atuahene-Gima, Kevin Au, Chung-Ming Lau, Shige Makino, Roger Rensvold, Chenting Su, Joe Zhou, and Kevin Zhou on earlier drafts of this paper. We specially thank Professor Witold Henisz and the two anonymous JIBS reviewers whose insightful feedback greatly improved this paper. The Unit for Chinese Management Development, Department of Marketing, City University of Hong Kong provided funding for this research.

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Correspondence to Chung-Leung Luk.

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Accepted by Anand Swaminathan, Special Issue Editor and Witold Henisz, Special Issue Editor and Departmental Editor, 4 September 2007. This paper has been with the authors for two revisions.

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Luk, CL., Yau, O., Sin, L. et al. The effects of social capital and organizational innovativeness in different institutional contexts. J Int Bus Stud 39, 589–612 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jibs.8400373

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