Impact of Companies' Social Capital on Person's Innovativeness in Russia: Economic Mechanisms and Diagnostic Tools

Abstract

This paper develops the hypothesis that social capital as a structural component of human capital affects a person's ability to form innovative solutions over their labor activity. In order to fully substantiate this hypothesis, not only empirical confirmation is required, but also an essential (economic) explanation and interpretation. The paper identifies and substantiates the cause-and-effect factors of the transformation of social capital as an integrative personal characteristic into their innovativeness, determined by a group of indicators of creativity, risk appetite and strategic thinking. The research materials are the data obtained by interviewing the employees of the enterprise. A technology has been developed for assessing the social capital of an enterprise employee, taking into account the factors of interpersonal and institutional trust, involvement in social networks and labor values, based on statistical processing of data representing objective information about the employee and subjective information obtained as a result of the survey, and allowing for a comparative analysis of employees in positions of their social capital. The research methods are system analysis and synthesis, methods of statistical analysis and modeling, the method of cognitive structuring. Based on the processing of the survey results and taking into account additional objective information about employees, the social capital was assessed and its influence on the innovativeness of the employee was modeled. It is shown that the main determinant of innovativeness is interpersonal and institutional trust, as well as social networks and connections. It was revealed that the cumulative influence of social capital on the innovativeness of the individual is positive and statistically significant. The economic mechanisms of the influence of social capital factors are formed, which explains their differentiating influence on the employee's innovativeness. The essential features of the transformational transitions of social capital factors through labor relations into the accumulation of human capital, the growth of value added and enterprise profits are determined. The proposed methodology and mechanisms can be used in the management decision support system in the field of human resource management, and will contribute to the company efficiency growth.