Qualitative Simulation on the Dynamics between Social Capital and Business Performance in Strategic Networks

Purpose - This study develops a simulation model that looks at the dynamics between social capital and business performance in strategic networks to understand their behaviors in relation to each other, and to suggest dynamic relationship strategies. Research design, data, and methodology - Based on existing literature, this study identifies the complex causal loop diagram on social capital and business performance in strategic networks, and converts them into a simulation model for observing how the changes in business environment and relationship dependency affect social capital and business performance. Results - The simulation results showed that, first, the formation in social capital and business performance of networks with low relationship dependency was less affected by the changes in business environment. Second, the formation in social capital and business performance of networks with high relationship dependency was negatively impacted by the changes in business environment. In other words, higher relationship dependency strengthened the impact of changes in business environment on business performance. Conclusions - Thus, this study confirmed that in strategic networks, the changes in business environment and the degree of relationship dependency dynamically affect business performance, and that relationship dependency mediates the degree in which changes in the business environment affect business performance. The results of the simulations were further verified through actual business cases.