Knowledge Team Members Effect The Role Of Social Capital On Knowledge Sharing Mechanism

During knowledge era, knowledge has been replacing financial capital and natural resources to be the most important production for an organization. The management level of knowledge is just the factor that determines whether an organization can increase its knowledge value and finally to enhance its core competency. As the foundation and core, knowledge sharing is the premise for the other procedures in knowledge management. Only by knowledge sharing among individuals, an organization can improve its knowledge management and obtain its economic and competing value. At the same time, many knowledge-based teams are founded to manage those knowledge-based employees. Therefore, the rules of knowledge flowing and sharing in knowledge-based teams have become an important theme, attracting attentions from both practical and theoretical world.Within the peer-to-peer framework of knowledge sharing, scholars suggest that the context should be emphasized. That is to say, the procedures and effects of knowledge sharing can be explained better by the structure, relationship, and cognition formed in certain network. In line with this, researches on knowledge sharing based on social capital theory have emerged as a kind of trend. The present dissertation focuses on the influence mechanism of internal social capital formed by members within knowledge-based team on the knowledge sharing effect, with theories of social capital as the foundation.Based on the literatures, the topic of this dissertation is divided into five sub-topics: (1) the division of the variable of social capital, and the inter-relationships among the sub variables; (2) the influence of social capital on knowledge sharing effect; (3) the antecedents of social capital; (4) the mediating role of knowledge tacit on the relationship between social capital variables and knowledge sharing effect; (5) the influence of social capital on knowledge sharing changes along with the different character of knowledge-based team.R&D teams from enterprises and academic teams from universities are taken as the subjects of this dissertation. Conclusions from empirical study on these teams are as following.1. There are inter-relationships among the variables of social capital. Based on the discussion on the dimensions of social capital made by Nahapiet & Ghoshal(1998), Tsai & Ghoshal(1998), empirical study is conducted on the relationships among the structural variable (network centrality), the relational variable (interpersonal trust), and the cognitive variable (team cognition). By dividing the social capital variable into three sub variables, the essence of social capital is reflected more detailed. Such paradigm is different from the previous studies.Tsai & Ghoshal(1998) suggested that network centrality and team cognition have positive effect on trust, while the influence of network centrality on team cognition is not significant. But such conclusions were made only from 15 departments in one organization. Based on large scale of samples, this dissertation reveals that both network centrality and team cognition have positive effect on interpersonal trust, and network centrality has significant positive effect on team cognition. Being different from Tsai & Ghoshal(1998), the conclusions here support the views of Levin & Cross (2003), and Luo J.D, et al. (2007), which provides new evidence for this controversy.2. Social capital has significant influence on knowledge sharing effect. A large body of literature(Ibarra, 1993; Hansen, 2002; Seokwoo Song, et al., 2007; Holste & Fields, 2003; Szulanski, et al., 2004; Mooradian, et al., 2007; Tsai & Ghoshal, 1998; Luo J.D., 2007; Ke J.L., 2007; Xie H.F., 2007)reveals that both the structural variable and relational variable have positive influence on knowledge sharing effect. Contrasting to these studies, Tsai & Ghoshal(1998) and Luo(2007)found that there was no significant influence of team cognition on knowledge sharing effect, but the indirect influence mediating by trust existed. This dissertation not only confirms the positive influence of both the structural variable and the relational variable on knowledge sharing effect, but also finds team cognition has positive influence on knowledge sharing effect. Such conclusions suggest that, the team cognition based on shared valuation, and shared language is the foundation of knowledge sharing effect, and has its direct influence on knowledge sharing effect.It is found that social capital can explain 71.2% of knowledge sharing effect of knowledge-based team as a whole concept. The ranking of influencing power from high to low is: interpersonal trust (0.307), team cognition (0.283), and network centrality (0.279). This result confirms the rationality of using social capital theory to explain knowledge sharing effect, with obtaining the influencing power of sub variables of social capital on knowledge sharing effect.This dissertation suggests that social capital variables all have significantly positive influence on knowledge sharing effect, and there are interrelationships among these sub variables. As the representative of structural variable, network centrality is the foundation of social capital, which has positive influence on the knowledge sharing effect, and enhances the formation of the relational variable and the cognitive variable. The cognitive variable is the necessary content of social capital. Besides this, the cognitive variable enhances the formulation of interpersonal trust relationships among team members. The interpersonal trust is a exemplar of the relational variable, and it is the core of social capital. Deriving from network centrality and team cognition, interpersonal trust is always the key element for the team members to acquire knowledge sharing effect.3. The individual and organizational factors influence the form of the team members' social capital. Dividing the form factors of the team members' social capital into individual and organizational factors, the empirical study in this dissertation reveals the following conclusions.①The personality of self-monitor has positive influence on network centrality;②The personality of benevolence has positive influence on interpersonal trust;③The individual ability has positive influence on network centrality;④The interpersonal trust is positively influenced by individual ability;⑤The team communication loads positive effect on team cognition;⑥There is not statically significant influence of team communication on interpersonal trust.4. The interrelationships of the sub variables of social capital change along with the character of knowledge-based team. The R&D team, knowledge department, and professional community are often used to research the relationship between social capital and knowledge sharing in knowledge-based team, while little effort is put on the knowledge sharing in university knowledge-based team from the perspective of social capital, not to say the comparison research on the influencing mechanism of social capital on knowledge sharing in different knowledge-based team. This dissertation makes up this absence by dividing knowledge based team into R&D team in enterprises and academic team in universities, and focuses on the team character's impact on the influencing mechanism of social capital on knowledge sharing effect.The group research finds that the verification results of all hypotheses are congruent in the two types of knowledge based team, except for the interrelationships of the sub variables of social capital. Compared to R&D team in enterprises, network centrality has significantly higher impact on interpersonal trust and team cognition in academic teams in universities. So does the influence of team cognition on interpersonal trust. These results suggest that the positive influence of network centrality on interpersonal trust is dependent on the team character, as well as the influence of network centrality on team cognition and team cognition on interpersonal trust.5. The knowledge tacit mediates the impact of social capital on knowledge sharing effect. The dissertation takes further steps than the binary hierarchy of knowledge sharing to discuss the mediating role of knowledge tacit against the background of knowledge network formed in knowledge-based team. The empirical study reveals that the knowledge tacit mediates the impact of network centrality and interpersonal trust on knowledge sharing effect. This result is identical to Levin & Cross(2003), Seokwoo Song, et al. (2007). Besides of these, the other innovative conclusion of this dissertation is the mediating role of knowledge tacit on the influencing process of team cognition on knowledge sharing effect.