IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/indinn/v18y2011i6p631-647.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Impact of Social Capital on Ideation

Author

Listed:
  • Jennie Björk
  • Fausto Di Vincenzo
  • Mats Magnusson
  • Daniele Mascia

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of social capital on the quality of ideas generated by individuals at work. Two dimensions of social capital are investigated—the degree (i.e. size) of individuals' networks of ideation relations, and the structural holes (i.e. gaps between nodes) of those relations. Previous research has presented different and even conflicting empirical results concerning the effect of structural holes on innovation activities, and has not dealt specifically with the ideation phase of the innovation process. By drawing upon an idea database from a Swedish company that has worked systematically with idea management for an extensive period, this study investigates the interrelationship between social capital and ideation. The empirical study reveals that the larger the size of an individual's ego network, the higher is this individual's innovative performance in terms of high-quality ideas, whereas the larger the number of structural holes in an ego network, the lower is the quality of ideas generated by the individual in question. These findings support the conclusion that social capital, in terms of individuals' relationships with fellow employees within firms, has a positive influence on idea-generating behavior. Moreover, the results reveal that the presence of structural holes is negative for ideation performance, thus providing important new input to the recent debate on the interrelationship between structural holes and innovation in general.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennie Björk & Fausto Di Vincenzo & Mats Magnusson & Daniele Mascia, 2011. "The Impact of Social Capital on Ideation," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 631-647, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:indinn:v:18:y:2011:i:6:p:631-647
    DOI: 10.1080/13662716.2011.591976
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13662716.2011.591976
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13662716.2011.591976?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lyndon Murphy & Robert Huggins & Piers Thompson, 2016. "Social capital and innovation: A comparative analysis of regional policies," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(6), pages 1025-1057, September.
    2. Zimmerling, Eric & Höllig, Christoph E. & Sandner, Philipp G. & Welpe, Isabell M., 2019. "Exploring the influence of common game elements on ideation output and motivation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 302-312.
    3. Laurence Saglietto & Cécile Cézanne & Delphine David, 2020. "Research On Structural Holes: An Assessment On Measurement Issues," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(3), pages 572-593, July.
    4. Chris C. Gernreich & Sebastian Knop, 2019. "Empowering Creative Employees: Phase-Specific Support In The Front-End Of Innovation," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 23(08), pages 1-31, December.
    5. Schweisfurth, Tim G. & Dharmawan, Magha P., 2019. "Does lead userness foster idea implementation and diffusion? A study of internal shopfloor users," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 289-297.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:indinn:v:18:y:2011:i:6:p:631-647. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CIAI20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.