Cross-functional collaboration, knowledge transfer and product innovativeness: Contingency effects of social context

A contingency perspective is used to examine how social capital influences the relationship between cross-functional collaboration and product innovativeness. Three dimensions of organizations' internal social context (social interaction, trust, and goal congruence) conducive to high-quality knowledge transfer are argued to increase firms' ability to convert cross-functional collaboration into product innovativeness. Several research hypotheses are tested based on a sample of 232 firms. It is found that the relationship between cross-functional collaboration and product innovativeness is amplified at higher levels of the three social capital dimensions. The study's implications for the role of knowledge transfer and social capital in exchange relationships are discussed. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010.