An Empirical Study on Social Capital and Innovation Performance: Is Absorptive Capacity a Moderator?

In the relationship between social capital and innovation performance, absorptive capacity plays a vital role. But whether it is a moderator or a mediator, there still exists controversy. Based on questionnaire survey to 94 companies in Guangdong province, the factor analysis of data indicates that social capital can be divided into two dimensions, while absorptive capacity can be reduced to three elements. Further correlation analysis and hierarchical multiple regression shows that social capital and absorptive capacity indeed produce marked and positive effect on innovation performance of the enterprise respectively, while absorptive capacity significantly moderates the relationship between the two other variables. Thus, absorptive capacity plays a moderator role.