Social capital and knowledge sharing performance of learning networks

• Formalized coordination mechanisms help to develop both social interaction and trust.
• Social interaction is important for the development of cognitive social capital.
• Social interaction and cognitive social capital promote knowledge sharing in networks.
• Network level performance assessment should adopt both firm and network perspectives.

The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the relationship between the social capital accumulated among network members and the performance of learning networks in terms of their ability to enhance knowledge sharing among network members. A network level perspective guided the sampling strategy adopted for this survey involving 150 members of 16 European learning networks. Hierarchical multiple regression and structural equation modelling were employed to investigate the inter-relationships between dimensions of social capital and knowledge sharing in learning networks. The results reveal that social interaction and cognitive social capital are positively and significantly related to knowledge sharing in learning networks. Social interaction is also shown to play an important role in the development of shared vision and shared language (i.e. cognitive social capital) in learning networks. This paper sheds further light on the inter-relationships between different dimensions of social capital from a network (rather than firm) level perspective, and contributes to emerging theory on the antecedents to, and assessment of, performance in learning network entities.