Research On The Influence Of Social Capital On Knowledge Integration In Interdisciplinary Research Teams

Interdisciplinary research teams(IDR teams)play a critical role in solving complex problems and achieving innovation.Knowledge integration is the key to the effectiveness of IDR teams.Due to the embeddedness,heterogeneity and implicitness of knowledge,knowledge integration occurs during interpersonal interactions.There are complex social capital mechanisms behind knowledge integration.Therefore,research on the influence of social capital on knowledge integration is helpful to improve knowledge integration in IDR teams.Social capital has the attribute of multi-level and multi-source.Extant research mainly indicates that social capital influences knowledge integration from a single perspective.Few studies involve the impact of different perspectives of social capital on knowledge integration,and even less on the intermediate mechanism of how social capital influences knowledge integration.According to team boundaries,the whole social network capital includes internal social capital and external social capital.Internal social capital can be further categorized as individual social cap ital and team social capital.Because social capital reflects interpersonal interactions and knowledge flow,it has become an important perspective to knowledge management research.However,the effects of different perspectives of social capital on knowledge integration have been overlooked by scholars.In order to investigate the effect of social capital on knowledge integration,this study takes IDR teams from research universities,research institutes and R&D departments of enterprises as samples,and systematically focuses on this topic from different perspectives of social capital,that is,individual social capital,team social capital and external social capital.The main content is as follows.Firstly,from the perspective of individual social capital within the team,using the individual sample data of IDR teams from a C9 research university,this paper empirically analyzes the influence of individual social capital on knowledge integration using statistical analysis.Results imply that team identity mediates the individual social capital-knowledge integration relation;the positive impact of individual social capital on team identity is positively moderated by task interdependence,that is,the increase of task interdependence strengthens the positive impact of individual social capital on team identity.Moreover,the mediation effect of team identity is also positively moderated by task interdependence,that is,the increase of task interdependence strengthens the indirect effect of team identity.Secondly,from the team social capital perspective,using team data of IDR team samples from a C9 research university,and applying social network analysis and hierarchical linear model,this paper empirically analyzes the cross-level effect of team social capital on knowledge integration.Results indicate that relational embeddedness has a significant positive impact on knowledge integration;structural embeddedness has an inverted U-shaped influence on knowledge integration;that is,moderate structural embeddedness can promote knowledge integration most;team social capital negatively moderates relational embeddedness-knowledge integration relation,that is,the increase of team social capital can weaken the positive relationship between relational embeddedness and knowledge integration.Finally,from the perspective of external social capital,using individual data of IDR team samples from research universities,scientific research institutes and R&D departments in enterprise,this paper empirically analyzes the influence of external social capital on knowledge integration using statistical analysis.Results imply that self-efficacy mediates external social capital-knowledge integration relation;the positive influence of external social capital on self-efficacy is positively moderated by task complexity;that is,the increase of task complexity strengthens the positive impact of external social capital on self-efficacy;moreover,the indirect effect of external social capital on knowledge integration through self-efficacy is positively moderated by task complexity.In general,taking IDR teams in research universities,scientific research institutes and R&D department in enterprises as samples,this study combines perspectives of individual social capital,team social capital,external social capital and knowledge integration.It regards social capital as the key predictor,combined with internal motivation and task characteristics.This paper is to investigate the effect of individual social capital,team social capital and external social capital on knowledge integration in IDR teams,so as to further reveal the effect of social capital on knowledge integration.This study enriches research on social capital and knowledge management,and has practical implications to knowledge management of IDR teams.