Investigating the role and place of inter-organizational social capital in alliances between aviation defense industries and their strategic partners

The main objective of this paper is to examine the impact of inter-organizational social capital and its various dimensions (cognitive, relational and structural) on the performance of partnerships with the aim of filling the research gap in this field. Also for the first time in defense industry of the country, this study intends to assess the situation of various dimensions of social capital in partnerships established between the aviation defense industries and their strategic partners in the private sector; as well as to take steps to stabilizing these types of partnerships by identifying areas requiring improvement. In this research, structural equation modeling with partial least squares approach has been used to test the proposed conceptual model and its related hypotheses. The results of analyzing questionnaires distributed in the aviation defense industries show that the social capital and its dimensions have a significant positive impact on the performance of partnerships. Also, the results of the mean test show that the studied partnerships are not in a favorable situation in terms of some aspects and indicators of social capital, and it is necessary for the managers of the companies involved in the partnership to pay more attention to the joint development of social and psychological issues of partnerships.