The moderating effect of leadership empowerment on relational capital and firms' innovation performance in the entrepreneurial ecosystem: Evidence from China
Journal of Intellectual Capital
ISSN: 1469-1930
Article publication date: 17 December 2021
Issue publication date: 15 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to fill the research gap on the moderating effect of leadership empowerment on the relationship between relational capital and firms' innovation performance in the entrepreneurial ecosystem by addressing the following research questions: (1) How do different types of relational capital positively or negatively affect firms' innovation performance in China? (2) Does leadership empowerment play a moderating role in the above relationship?
Design/methodology/approach
Using data derived from the firms distributed in eastern, central and western China, the authors study the impact of relational capital, one of the dimensions of intellectual capital, on firms' innovation performance in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Based on firms' operation process regarding the relationships with their external stakeholders, the authors divided relational capital into three aspects: trust, reciprocity and transparency. Furthermore, leadership empowerment is taken as the moderating variable in the above theoretical relationship.
Findings
There is significant evidence that trust, reciprocity and transparency have positive impact on firms' innovation performance. Leadership empowerment positively moderates the impact of trust and reciprocity on innovation performance. However, there is no significant moderating effect of leadership empowerment on the relationship between transparency and innovation performance.
Originality/value
In the era of the knowledge economy, the entrepreneurial ecosystem is a critical foundation for firms to improve their innovation capacity and performance, and intellectual capital is one of the most imperative drivers in terms of firms' innovation performance. Nevertheless, few studies have investigated thoroughly concerning the relationships among the entrepreneurial ecosystem, intellectual capital and innovation performance. As this study explores the relationships among the above three factors, it may have profound theoretical and practical significance for firms to extent external relationship networks, improve their innovation performance and strengthen their core competencies, which is of great significance to facilitate the construction of entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The paper is funded by the National Natural Science Foundation Project of China (No: 71663058); the Applied Basic Research Key Project of Yunnan Province (No: 2018FA037) and the Yunnan Philosophy and Social Science Innovation Team Project. The authors wholeheartedly thank these projects for funding the research.
Citation
Duan, Y., Chen, Y., Liu, S., Wong, C.-S., Yang, M. and Mu, C. (2023), "The moderating effect of leadership empowerment on relational capital and firms' innovation performance in the entrepreneurial ecosystem: Evidence from China", Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 306-336. https://doi.org/10.1108/JIC-07-2021-0183
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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