Research On The Relationships Among Social Capital,Marketing Synergy And Marketing Performance Of Subsidiary In Business Rroup

As a special form of economic organization, business group prevails all over the world, and plays a significant role in the economy development. Synergy is an important source of sustained competitiveness for business group. Subsidiary synergy within the group would ensure the potential and the utilization of internal resources, and the formation of complementary advantages, so as to realize the maximization of the overall value of the group. Subsidiary synergy exists mainly on the points of marketing and R&D in the value chain. Through synergy in these links, subsidiary would obtain greater value. For the subsidiaries, marketing synergy can effectively reduce marketing costs and meet customers’needs much better. Thus, it is of both theoretically and practically significance to study subsidiary marketing synergy.In this study, subsidiary marketing synergy in a business group is divided into marketing asset synergy and marketing knowledge synergy. This paper focuses on how to improve the marketing asset synergy and marketing knowledge synergy among subsidiaries from the perspective of social capital. Business group is a typical interorganizational network. There are economic relations and all kinds of social relations among its subsidiaries. In the internal network of a business group, the frequent interactions and close comiections among subsidiaries have generated abundant internal social capital. From the perspective of social capital, a subsidiary marketing synergy model is developed, which reveals that subsidiary marketing synergy is the process of identifying the marketing synergy links with the help of social capital, and sharing and utilizing the marketing resources.The paper is constituted of three parts. First, the impact of subsidiary social capital on marketing synergy. This part mainly discusses the promotion of marketing assets synergies and marketing knowledge synergies, which is basically from structural social capital, relational social capital and cognitive social capital. Second, the relationship between marketing synergy and marketing performance. This part mainly explores the impact of marketing assets synergies and marketing knowledge synergies on subsidiary marketing performance. Third, the moderating effect of subsidiary autonomy on the relationship between social capital and marketing synergy. This part investigates that, with different levels of subsidiary autonomy, whether there would be different impacts from social capital on marketing synergy. If there are any, what are the differences?In order to achieve the anticipated objectives, this study combined three different research methods, which are literature research, interview research and survey research. Firstly, the author systematically combed through the related literature on corporate social capital, marketing resources and marketing synergy, thus determined the research directions and laid the theoretical foundation for the empirical study. On the basis of literature review and the interview, the paper put forward the research hypotheses and developed a conceptual model. To test the research hypothesis and the conceptual model, a survey was conducted with a sample of business group subsidiaries established for3years or over3years. On the basis of176valid questionnaires, descriptive statistical analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis were conducted using the statistical software of SPSS18.0. This research resulted in the following three conclusions:First, the frequent interactions among the subsidiaries of a business group would bring into abundant internal social capital. The subsidiary social capital can be measured by the three dimensions of structural social capital, relational social capital and cognitive social capital. The more connections and more frequent interactions among subsidiaries within the group network, the more abundant the structural social capital would be. The subsidiaries, with higher level of trust and commitment, would occupy more relational social capital. The subsidiaries, sharing more vision and cultural values with the group, would possess more cognitive social capital. With close interaction in our country, the Chinese group subsidiaries have formed high level of social capital. Among the three dimensions, the relational social capital and the cognitive social capital level are relatively higher.Second, the group internal social capital of a subsidiary has a positive effect on subsidiary marketing synergy. The subsidiary social capital within the group network is formed by the long-term interaction. And once the social capital is formed, it could effectively promote the marketing synergy. With more structural social capital, a subsidiary could obtain more opportunities of identifying marketing synergy links and more channels of acquiring marketing resources from the group internal network. With more relational social capital, subsidiaries would have more confidence in cooperation and resources sharing. With more cognitive social capital, subsidiaries would be stimulated for marketing synergy, which is beneficial for the utilization of marketing resources. In the three dimensions, the structural social capital has the largest effect on marketing synergy. The effect of relational social capital is the secondary, the cognitive social capital’s is the least. Compared with the marketing assets synergy, the subsidiary three dimensions of the social capital have stronger impact on the marketing knowledge synergy.Third, marketing synergy can significantly enhance the subsidiary marketing performance. Marketing asset synergy could guarantee enough utilization of marketing capital resources, thereby achieving a higher scale economy effect. Due to its non-wear, non-exclusive and incremental nature, and marketing knowledge synergy could bring a scope economy effect. Marketing asset synergy and marketing knowledge synergy also shows some differences in improving the marketing performance level. And the former has a more significant effect. The finding could offer a new explanation for the differences in subsidiary performance. With the interactions among the group internal network, subsidiaries would form different levels of social capital. The subsidiary with much more social capital could achieve a higher level of marketing synergy, thus obtain more synergy benefits, which in turn leads to a higher level of performance.Fourth, subsidiary autonomy has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between social capital and marketing synergy. Proper authorization from parent company is an important incentive mechanism, which can promote subsidiaries actively to seek for cooperation with other subsidiaries in the business group network. The fit of subsidiary autonomy and social capital is able to more effectively promote the marketing synergy. With higher levels of marketing autonomy, more abundant structural and relational social capital, more likely the realization of marketing asset synergy; and the structural social capital could also effectively promote the realization of marketing knowledge synergy. With less marketing autonomy, too much relational social capital would cause the subsidiary "overembedded" in local network and reduce the marketing asset synergy.This dissertation makes three contributions. First, it breaks through the traditional limitations of studying marketing synergy from internal and external environmental factors, illustrates the mechanism of subsidiary marketing synergy from the perspective of subsidiary interaction, develops a model about relationship of subsidiary social capital, marketing synergy and marketing performance, and takes the empirical test. Second, it explores the impact of subsidiary social capital on marketing synergy, which reveals the moderating mechanism of subsidiary autonomy on the relationship of the above two, and discovers that subsidiary autonomy could enhance the relationship between the internal social capital and marketing synergy. Third, it develops a subsidiary marketing synergy evaluation index system, and carries on empirical examination. The evaluation index system is composed of the subsidiary marketing synergy scale and the marketing performance scale. For the marketing synergy scale, subsidiary marketing synergy is divided into marketing asset synergy and marketing knowledge synergy. Each, with six items, measures the sharing level of general marketing assets and complementary marketing knowledge among the subsidiaries. For the marketing performance scale, subjective perceived performance level of subsidiaries is measured with six items about market performance and customer performance. Through the empirical test, the scale certifies high level of reliability and validity, which can effectively measure subsidiary marketing synergy and marketing performance, provides a tool for the empirical research on marketing synergy and marketing management practice in the future.