Social capital and knowledge creation: a higher education institution networks

Abstract

Social capital concept has become popular over the past decades. What is not known in literature and worth investigating is the network designs and nature that enhance the development of new learning ideas and knowledge creation. The aim of the paper is to examine network structure dimensions, namely centrality (bonding) and structural holes (bridging or looser ties) of social capital formed within higher education networks that stimulate the development of new ideas and knowledge creation of the participants in the networks across multiple domains of science. This study employs negative binomial regression on a sample of participants within a higher education network to predict the development of new ideas and knowledge creation. The results show that the different features of social capital dimensions influence the development of new ideas and knowledge creation of the participants in the networks differently. Specifically, the study reveals that the brokerage network appears to be more relevant than cohesion in the Ghanaian higher education institution networks. When knowledge creation is decomposed into different fields of science, Health Science is found to be the most productive. The decomposing of the knowledge creation into different fields of science remains a value of this study.