A Study On The Impact Of Corporate Social Capital On Corporate Performance In The Chinese Context

The corporate social capital is such a kind of structural resource as is included in the social structure or network consciously constructed by a corporate for the purpose of conveniently acquiring certain resources, realizing specific objectives, making decisions and obtaining profits. In a corporate the social capital, the economic capital and the human capital all together form into the capital structural system in which the three types of capitals correlate with and interact upon each other. Although the corporate social capital has already become a research focus in economics studies, yet there has not been any rigor conclusion as regards how to define and measure the corporate social capital, which gives rise to the fact that the researches find themselves still at the starting stage regarding the system of how the social capital affects the corporate performances.The current paper, on the basis of reviewing related research literature both home and abroad, makes a start by clearly defining the corporate social capital. Specifically, this paper makes a distinction between the political capital, the financial capital, the business social capital and the local social capital; and by considering the special conditions in China, this paper then conducts a theoretical analysis and an empirical examination of how the corporate social capital acts upon the corporate performances. Through the study, some major conclusions are drawn as follows:First, in a Chinese context, the political social capital does not produce a positive effect upon the corporate performances while the financial social capital and the local social capital do.Second, in a Chinese context, the financial capital is positively correlated with the corporate performances no matter whether the corporate is located in developed or underdeveloped regions; and other social capitals in a corporate act upon the corporate performances differently in accordance with the degree of the social capital being embedded locally.Third, the processes of marketization of different capitals in China advance synchronously in the temporal dimension but differently in the spatial dimension; and the progress of marketization do not weaken the functions of the corporate social capital. In addition, the negative impact of the political social capital upon the corporate performances is descending while the positive impact of the financial capital upon the corporate performances is ascending. It is possible that the process of marketization have helped raise the payback of the social capital, thus leading China to a distorted market mechanism, or say, a market mechanism with distinct Chinese characteristics.After the empirical examination, this paper makes a further discussion about the corporate social capital, providing some suggestions for the government and the enterprises. It is suggested that when strengthening its own competitiveness, the enterprise should put forward a proper investment for accumulating its financial social capital and at the same time evade the political social capital. It is also suggested that the government should avoid being directly involved in the economic relations and the corporate activities, so as to provide a healthy market environment for the enterprises and prevent the transition of marketization from taking the wrong turning.At last, this paper illustrates its main limitations and elaborates some future research directions.