Enabling Knowledge Sharing Through Relational Capital in a Family Business Context

This article provides a more comprehensive view of relational capital (RC) and how it affects knowledge sharing (KS) within family firms. Through the lens of an RC framework with four dimensions (agent, context, object, and relationship) and a relational perspective, we propose that the agent, context and relationship have an effect on the sharing of the object (knowledge). To operationalize the dimensions we used mutual trust and reciprocal commitment to represent the agent, norms and sanctions the context, and strength of ties the relationship. To empirically test the proposal, quantitative relational data at the dyadic level was collected from 27 agents including family members and non-family members in a manufacturing company located in Mexico. Data was analyzed using social network analysis through multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure (MRQAP). Findings suggest that RC is better represented by one individual dimension (mutual trust), one relational dimension (ties strength) and one contextual dimension (norms and sanctions) and they prove to have a significant effect on KS. This study contributes to the social capital and knowledge management literature by expanding, through a relational perspective, the understanding of the RC variables and their effects on KS within the context of family businesses in a Latin American emerging economy.