Social Capital and the Creation of Knowledge Claudia Gonzalez-Brambila Francisco Veloso David Krackhardt INFORMS, November 2006

2 Outline u Introduction u Objective u The data u Importance u The models u Results u Conclusions

3 Introduction “Social capital metaphor is that people who do better are somehow better connected” u Critical question is what is social capital? –Coleman (1988): Actors in embedded networks have superior achievements »Members obtain more coordination, they trust each other and develop better communication skills. –Burt (1992): Actors in open social structures with many structural holes, do better »Members can take advantage of “bridges” to connect with new members in other clusters, and get access to new information

4 Introduction u Growing importance of production, dissemination and use of knowledge u Little understanding of what determines how such crucial knowledge is created u The interaction between individuals plays a critical role – social capital u Growing attention to the role of collaborative effort in the process of scientific knowledge generation

5 Objectives u Paper examines the relationship between social capital and knowledge creation – Knowledge creation is research output and impact in the area of Natural Sciences –Creation process measured using publications and citations in ISI – Web of Science –Social capital is measured through co-authorship

6 The Data u Data from SNI – National System of Researchers in Mexico u Information on 1,704 researchers in Natural Sciences that have been part of the SNI from 1991 to 2002 u Information on all their publications in ISI Web of Science from 1981 to 2002 –Publications per year –Citations per year –Authors per publication

7 Importance u Study enables analysis of most critical aspects of social capital: –Embeddedness –Positioning –Network Structure u Considers panel data with entire network u Study outside developed world - Mexico

8 Critical Aspects of Social Capital u Relational dimension: –Direct ties –Strengths of direct ties u Structural dimension –Density –Structural holes –Centrality –External-Internal index in terms of fields of knowledge

9 The Models u Dependent variables: –Number of publications –Number of cites in the subsequent 4 years u Methods: –Negative Binomial fixed effects u P it = F (X it-1, c i, u it ) –X it-1 : varies in both dimensions »number of direct ties, strength of direct ties, structural holes, density, normalized eigenvector (centrality), external-internal index, »Controls – past reputation and output, time –c i : individual unobserved effect –u it : error –Times: t-> 2 years; t-1 -> 3 years

10 Some Results *** significant at 0.1%, ** significant at 1%, * significant at 5%

11 Conclusions u Factors of social capital that consistently enhance productivity and impact: –Number of direct ties –Non dense networks u Influence output productivity, not impact –Centrality –Collaboration with researchers in other disciplines u Influence impact but not output productivity –Strenght of Direct ties

12 Conclusions u The structural holes variable is not significant when other variables are included –This variable has been used as the main measure of social capital u It is critical to control for various dimensions of social capital, as well as for unobserved individual heterogeneity

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