Disparate association between alliance social capital and the global pharmaceutical firm's performance

Some literature suggests that three dimensions of social capital—such as information volume, diversity and richness—have positive association with the firm's performance. However, these constructs and their implications cannot be taken for granted because they may not produce similar results in all contextual settings. The article develops and tests associations between dimensions of social capital and organizational performance in a multidimensional network system. This study provides an analysis on 252 pharmaceutical firms. The analysis shows disparate but insightful results. First, there is a positive association between information volume and the firm's performance. Second, there is a negative association between information diversity and the firm's performance. Third, there is no significant association between information richness and the firm's performance. Therefore, different dimensions of social capital had different links with the firm's performance. The paper provides some explanation and implications of these findings.

► The study finds that information volume in social network is positively associated with the firm's performance
► Information diversity in social network is positively associated with the firm's performance
► Information richness in social network is positively associated with the firm's performance
► However, testing together, diversity and richness show negative association with the firm's performance.