The influence of incubating firm´ social capital on knowledge acquisition and knowledge exploitation

Previous studies on incubating firms (entrepreneurial firms in business incubators) pay little attention to social interaction between incubating firms and incubators as well as how the interaction affects the firms to acquire the necessary resources for incubation. By associating with incubators, incubating firms may build social capital with the incubators and acquire more dispensable resources such as knowledge through the social network of the incubators. The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship among social capital, knowledge acquisition and knowledge exploitation. Utilizing data collected from 165 incubating firms, this study found that social capital has a positive effect on incubating firm´s knowledge acquisition and there is a positive relationship between knowledge acquisition and new product development performance.