Social Capital And Innovative Performance In R&D Teams: Role Of Psycological Safety And Learning Behavior

With the acceleration of globalization and the fiercer competition, innovation has become a key factor deciding organization performance and survival. R&D team is widely used as a basic unit in the organization. The success of innovation of companies depends on the innovation performance of R&D team. The process of innovation is of risk and continuance, so perceived team psychological safety and continuous learning behaviors are needed to maintain the innovation. Furthermore, team psychological safety and learning behaviors are shaped and promoted through the interaction of team members. So they are closely related to social capital.By literature review on social capital, learning behaviors, team psychological safety and innovation performance, I find although there is abundant studies on social capital on organization-level and individual-level, there is a lack of studies on social capital on team-level, especial about the R&D teams. Additionally, there have been studies on the relationship between team social capital and team innovation performance, the relationship between team psychological safety and innovation performance, but there are few studies on the relationship between team psychological safety and team innovation performance and even the studies integrate these factors. Therefore, this study tests the relationships between social capital, psychological safety, learning behaviors and innovation performance, and discusses the mediation role of psychological safety and learning behaviors in the relationship between social capital and innovation performance. Finally, this study discusses the mechanism of how social capital promotes team psychological safety and learning behaviors and how promotes team innovation performance thereafter.This study takes the R&D as the object, used multivariable statistics and structural equation model to testify the construct of variables, and then build the model the social capital, learning behaviors, psychological safety and innovation performance. This study analyzes the effects of team social capital on learning behaviors, psychological safety and innovation performance, the effects of learning behaviors and psychological safety on innovation performance, and then the mediation of team learning behaviors and psychological safety. This study got following conclusions:(1) Adapted and tested the 3-factor structure model of social capital: structural capital, cognitive capital and relational capital. The data analysis shows the questionnaire has good validity and reliability.(2) Structural capital, cognitive capital and relational capital have positive effect on team psychological safety and team learning behaviors.(3) Team psychological safety and team learning behaviors have positive effect on innovation performance.(4) Team psychological safety partially mediates the relationship between structural capital and team innovation performance, while fully mediating the relationship between cognitive capital and team innovation performance, the relationship between relational capital and team innovation performance. Team learning behaviors partially mediates the relationship between structural capital and team innovation performance, while fully mediating the relationship between cognitive capital and team innovation performance, the relationship between relational capital and team innovation performance.