The paradox of social capital in China: venture capitalists and entrepreneurs’ social ties and public listed firms’ technological innovation performance

Contemporary research on entrepreneurship has showed that social capital can improve the success rate of entrepreneurial activities, but focusing too much on social capital can also divert entrepreneurs’ attention to certain firm activities such as technological innovation. The purpose of this study is to explore such a paradox in order to better understand the impact of social capital on firms’ technological innovation performance in China. The current study explores this paradox with the data from 249 public listed Chinese firms that have received venture capital investment. The results show that both venture capitalists’ social ties and entrepreneurs’ social ties negatively affect these firms’ technological innovation performance, including total patents granted, R&D expenditure, and total factor productivity. In other words, venture capitalists’ social ties as well as entrepreneurs’ social ties actually impede, rather than facilitate their firms’ technological innovation. The results also show that entrepreneurs’ social capital mediates the impact of venture capitalists’ social capital on technological innovation performance. Managerial and policy implications for entrepreneurship research and technological innovation are then discussed for future research.