A Study On The Relationships Of Social Capital, Strategy Flexibility And Competitive Advantage In Minor Scintific And Research Enterprise

In the times which is characteristic of globalization, information and knowledge,the increasingly fierce competitive environment makes for competitive advantage ofcompanies is the key to survival and development. On the other side, the factors ofinformation, technology and customer demand which affect the competitive advantageof the enterprise a lot still lie to change ceaselessly, and from a long-term point of view,these changes will be more rapidly. Enterprises in the traditional management modealready cannot meet current environmental requirements, which must constantly adjustcorporate strategy dynamically and sustainable innovation according to the change ofcompetitive environment. Therefore, strategic flexibility is an important competitiveadvantage condition for enterprises. The strategy of the enterprise must be flexibleenough to adapt to the complex and changeable environment in order to obtaincompetitive advantage. So far, the study about social capital and enterprise competitiveadvantage main focus on the enterprise growth opportunities development,performance evaluation, network analysis, development soft environment construction,and entrepreneur characteristics analysis and so on. But for the small and mid-sizedenterprises, the research on that they how to play a role of social capital in makingstrategic sufficient flexibility which affect competitive advantages of enterprises slantslittle, Which is seems simple but challenged research topic.On the basis of the existing theoretical research’s shortage and existing problems’analysis in practice, this thesis focus on the analysis of small and medium sizedenterprise social capital’s character and the mechanism of the social capital influenceon enterprise resources and ability, and then promotes enterprise strategic flexibility, tokeep the sustainable competitive advantage. On this basis of the related researchliterature and a theoretical analysis, this study build the triangle model of therelationships of social capital, strategy flexibility and competitive advantage, andproposes five research hypotheses. Then take M company as an example, through thecase study to obtain information and literature evolution, the five research hypotheses are preliminary validation. The results show that: for small and medium-sizedenterprises, the public and technology entrepreneur social capital has significant effectof resource flexibility. Because the research object-M Co. was registered in2006;the influence of the market impact strength is insufficient. The market social capital tothe strategic flexibility’s affect are not well validated both on two aspects. But it canbe drawn that the effect of the entrepreneurs’ society capital to strategic flexibility ispositive correlation. But in the process of validating strategy flexibility’s affect on thecompetitive advantage, affect of resource flexible to competitive advantage is notobvious. Finally, the thesis further explains and discuses the empirical results, thensummary the obtained theoretical development and practical enlightenmentsystematically and put forward the limitation of this study and gave a further researchprospect.Basic on learning a lot about strategic flexibility research and some other relevanttheories such as enterprise social capital theory, this study focused attention onstrategic flexibility, taking the scientific research method, and deep analysis thestrategic flexibility’s connotation and concept frame, front influence factors and theeffect mechanism for different types strategic flexibility to competitive advantage ofenterprises in the dynamic environment. The main innovative points as follows:First, thesis elaborate the strategic flexibility’s the concepts and elements whichprovide a new perspective for enterprises to obtain sustainable competitive advantage.Obtaining and maintaining sustainable competitive advantage is the central issue instrategic management. Current resource view theory is considered to lack ofenvironmental uncertainty, and the dynamic capabilities theory is fuzzy concept,analysis of the object is too broad and operability is poor, the problem such as lack ofempirical research. Strategic flexibility view emphasizes that enterprise should do toresources and the ability to set persistent obtain, develop and maintain. This thesisgives a clear definition and optimized reconstruction on the concepts and elements ofstrategic flexibility. From the connotation view, strategic flexibility means resourceflexibility and coordination ability of resource flexibility. From the point of view,strategic flexibility is reflected to adapt to environmental changes, and also embodied as the initiative to use environment or even create environmental change to wincompetitive advantage. Combined with the realistic background, this researchdemonstrated the enterprise resource flexibility and ability flexibility on competitiveadvantages of enterprises’ effect from two aspects of theory and the empirical.Secondly, this study enhances the systematic and rigorous of research on strategicflexibility by defining the content and constitute of strategic flexibility. This promotesthe development of quantitative research. The strategic flexibility theory research hasnot formed a complete concept system, leading to the conclusion of the study just arelative situation. This study suggests that strategic flexibility including resourceflexibility and capability flexibility through literature analysis and carding. This fullyintegrated resource view, ability view such as the mainstream thought of strategymanagement. Enterprise’s resource innovation and the ability of integrating theseresources are the basic views of strategic flexibility. This makes the concept ofstrategic flexibility more clearly, more focused and more clearly boundary.Thirdly, this study enriches the research of strategic flexibility’s lead influencefactors and the result on the competitive advantage through anal sizing therelationships among social network characteristics, strategic flexibility and competitiveadvantage. So far, the study on antecedents of strategic flexibility is still relativelyweak, and most of them are discussed too dependent on a specific situation. This studycorporate social capital characteristics influence strategic flexibility as the externalinfluence factors by integrating corporate social capital theory, competitive advantagetheory which are the current hot issues. This study established the theoreticalframework of corporate social capital, the strategic flexibility and competitiveadvantage of Enterprises, and revealed the mechanism of social capital of enterpriseinfluence on competitive advantage through the strategic flexibility. This contributes tothe deep research on strategic flexibility in network environment.