Abstract

Due to the awareness for the importance of social capital, many researches have investigated that social capital contributes to the successful implementation of product innovation. Although most researchers tried to model the effect of social capital on product innovation as a linear relation, we consider it too simplistic and fuzzy because knowledge utilization which ultimately leads to product innovation should exist in the relationship between social capital and product innovation. Using 107 survey data, this study found there is a partial mediating effect of knowledge utilization on the link between structure aspect of social capital and product innovation (i.e., new product development and improvement in existing products). Next, this study reported knowledge utilization does act as a perfect mediating variable on the link between awareness aspect of social capital and improvement of existing products, but act as a partial mediating variable on the link between awareness aspect of social capital and new product development. Finally, this study found that knowledge utilization does not act as a mediating variable on the link between relation aspect of social capita and product innovation.

Keywords

• Social Capital;
• Knowledge Utilization;
• Product Innovation