Social Capacitance in Open Contexts

To maximize the benefits of the Open Innovation (OI) paradigm, firms often seek tools and approaches to leverage external knowledge—i.e., knowledge originating outside firm boundaries—to enhance their Innovation Industrial Performance (IIP). Among these tools, Social Capacitance (SC) is a novel construct that combines social networking technologies, such as social media, with Absorptive Capacity (ACAP)— the firm's ability to acquire, assimilate, transform, and exploit external knowledge. Despite its potential, SC requires empirical investigation and measurement, particularly to determine its moderating role in the relationship between OI and firm IIP. This study addresses this need by proposing a logistic regression analysis, utilizing data from Eurostat's Community Innovation Survey (CIS) involving 27,419 European firms. Surprisingly, the findings reveal that while OI has a significant and positive impact on firms IIP, SC negatively moderates this relationship regardless of the firm's size or economic industry. This result seems to contradict the literature that views social networking technologies as powerful tools for enhancing firms' ability to identify and access external sources of knowledge to improve IIP. Possible explanations for this unexpected result can be found in prior related knowledge and the structure of the firm's external and internal communication. This work contributes both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, it identifies a preliminary measure for SC and tests its utility in improving IIP in an OI context. Practically, it shows that using social networking technologies to support ACAP activities (boosting SC) alone is insufficient and potentially counterproductive to enhancing IIP.