Investigating social capital, social networks, and organisational performance: the case of Chinese list companies

Previous Chinese social network studies have neglected to examine a strategic alliance of trust, reciprocity, and shared norms as the cognitive dimension of social capital to meditate the relationship between three types of social networks (business, government, and employee ties) and organisational performance. Based on social capital theory, this study examined the mediating effect of a strategic alliance of trust, reciprocity, and shared norms in such a relationship through a survey of 350 Chinese listed companies. The results indicate that a strategic alliance of trust, reciprocity and shared norms plays a mediating role in the positive relationship between the three types of social networks and organisational performance. The findings suggest that managers can improve their firm's performance by using this cognitive dimension of social capital as a common agreement between their firm and alliance partners to exchange favours such as knowledge and technology.