Jiayuan Liu
Tacit knowledge conversion is the key to the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. However, tacit knowledge is highly personal, difficult to articulate, and subconscious, making it particularly hard to convert. Social network has been viewed as the main channel of tacit knowledge conversion, but its disperse structural holes can cause poor communication among sci-tech achievements transformation team members, leading to limited information mobilization. Guanxi can alleviate such disadvantages, because it pursues resource mobilization in the form of favor exchange, renqing accumulation and mianzi preservation. Therefore, this project puts forward a scientific hypothesis that strategically leveraging guanxi to buffer the negative impacts of structural holes can promote the effective conversion of tacit knowledge, so as to advance the sci-tech achievements transformation. The project attempts to adopt a mixed-methods research approach which involves quantitative surveys and social network analysis, as well as qualitative interviews?observation and case studies. This project aims to explore the dynamics of social networks for tacit knowledge conversion in sci-tech achievements transformation team, investigating the impacts of structural holes and guanxi on the transfer, acquisition, application and integration of tacit knowledge respectively. In addition, it intends to study the moderating effect of guanxi on structural holes, exploring how guanxiand structural holes coordinate beneficially to promote the effective conversion of tacit knowledge among sci-tech achievements transformation team members. It can hence be seen that this project has significant theoretical and practical implications for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.
Guanxi; Structural Holes; Tacit Knowledge Conversion; Transformation of Scientific and technological Achievements.