Study On Social Capital, Self-organization Mechanism And Commercial Bank Operation Transformation Performance

Commercial banks are going through operational transformations,to adapt themselves to the socioeconomic changes, adjust the inclination of their corporate values for growth and keep optimizing their business models. Such efforts, in essence, aim at resolving the issue of how to achieve long-term, sustainable and optimal development for commercial banks. Under the overall background of global economic slowdown, increasingly tougher financial regulation policies, steady advancement of financial marketization and disintermediation and the sweeping impact of Internet finance, commercial banks in China now face a complex and severe situation in operational transformation. Therefore, there is not only theoretical and practical significance, but also imminent necessity for more in-depth analyses and substantial empirical research on the theoretical bases and implementation approaches of their operational transformation.Current research publications on the operational transformation of Chinese commercial banks mostly follow beaten paths as "behavior generates performance", or traditional macro level perceptions such as "institutional paradigm" or "functional perspective". There appears to be a lack of research on the micro-motives and operational mechanisms for commercial bank transformation, and an insufficiency of convincing theoretical research logic. Some researchers address the issue of operational transformation of commercial banks in an isolated setting and merely put forward objectives, action plans and technical measures, with little consideration of the antecedents for the proposed transformative behaviors.Indeed, commercial banks are not isolated individual action takers, but a knot in the grand social network of financial resources that covers all aspects of the social, economic and financial sectors. The operational transformation of commercial banks unavoidably has to embed itself in financial connections and interactions with all participating entities. Based on this observation, and by adopting the perspective of social capital and self-organization as well as the perception that embedded relation network generates behavior-behavior determines performance, this thesis attempts to explore and extract questions as follows:(1) What is the fundamental nature of the operational transformation commercial bank? (2) From what theoretical angle must we explain the inner logic of operational transformation of commercial banks, and what theoretical basis can therebybe recommended? (3) Under guidance of the above theory, what are the successful implementation approach and organizational mechanism for the operational transformation of commercial banks?Through elaboration on the above issues, this thesis will derive the inner behavioral logic and implementation approach for operational transformation. On the one hand, this will overcome the structural deficiency of traditional "behavior generates performance" research and thus usher in a theoretical renovation. On the other hand, this will provide a fresh viewpoint and new algorithm for operational transformation research, which will in turn navigate transformational practice. This thesis has mainly accomplished the following results:(1) Theoretical positioning and explanation. By reestablishing the theoretical basis for operational transformation of commercial banks, this thesis positions the subject as a realm of research on how financial agencies seek growth. By conducting interdisciplinary studies with "functional perspective", "resource-based view" and "social network view", the author points out that the objective of operational transformation by commercial banks is to acquire and control embedded financial resources, while the social capital theory and self-organizational mechanism has profound inner logical implication for commercial banks in obtaining the financial resources they need for sustainable development. To put it simple, this thesis clarifies the entry point and foothold for theoretical research on the subject.(2) Constructing research structure and models. Based on dissection of the status quo of operational transformation and the origin of existing problems, the author describes the embedded and diversified development of the financial industry, the dramatic change of competitive landscape incurred by such development, and their impact on the social capital and self-organizational mechanism of commercial banks. With these, the author defines the boundaries of the commercial banks’ social capital, the structural, relational and cognitional dimensions of related research, the relationship between the commercial banks’ self-organizational mechanism and social capital, and their effects on the performance of operational transformation. By using the social network of financial resources as the foundation, using social capital as the bridge and bond, and using self-organization as the organizational mechanism, this thesis constructs the conceptual research structure and model for the operational transformation of commercial banks.(3) Empirical analyses and experiments. Within its research structure, this thesis raises hypotheses regarding three sets of relationships, namely, relation of social capital and performance, relation of social capital and self-organizational mechanism, and relation of self-organization and operational transformation performance. By distribution of survey questionnaires on social webs, the author collects related data, conducts analyses of structural equation models, and compares the survey results with his own hypothetical expectations.(4) Research conclusions and discoveries. The social capital of commercial banks has significant positive effect on self-organizational mechanism and operational transformation performance. The self-organizational mechanism has significant positive effect on operational transformation performance, which builds a channel transforming the effect of social capital on operational transformation performance. The author found that the three dimensions of social capital of commercial banks conduct their own influences paths. Structural dimension has direct effect on self-organizational mechanism and operational transformation performance, and indirect effect on both by relational dimension. Cognitive dimension only has indirect effect on both by relational dimension. Relational dimension has indirect effect on operational transformation performance through self-organizational mechanism and plays a mediation role during three dimensions of the social capital.