Social capital and innovativeness of social enterprises: opportunity-motivation-ability and knowledge creation as mediators

This study contributes to an increased understanding of the role of opportunity-motivation-ability factors and knowledge creation in linking social capital and firm innovativeness. A pre-tested and pilot tested survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 112 managerial-level employees of Australian social enterprises. Structural equation modeling results confirmed the mediation effects of opportunity-motivation-ability factors and knowledge creation. Opportunity-motivation-ability factors interact with each other in their effect on knowledge creation leading to innovativeness. Results further support the importance of cognitive social capital for innovativeness. This study also extends the innovativeness concept into a new, previously overlooked application area, the Australian social enterprise context. Study findings suggest social enterprise managers to create more opportunities to knowledge exchange and reinforce shared vision to maintain a higher innovativeness. The future studies can confirm the study results with larger samples and test the moderation effect of social mission on the relationships established in this study.