Investigating the Mediating Role of Organizational Learning Ability in Assossiosion with Social Capital and Knowledge Creation

 This research was conducted with the aim of investigating the mediating role of organizational learning capability in the relationship between social capital and knowledge creation.

 The special situation of higher education and the necessity of dynamism have caused universities to continuously review the existing knowledge and create new knowledge. Therefore, in order to meet the needs of the society, they must provide the conditions and fields for knowledge creation. Knowledge creation is one of the important issues in modern organizations and especially educational environments that need special attention. This concept depends on different factors, the most important of which is the category of social capital; Because social capital, by creating a context for participation and cooperation among the members of the organization, causes the reproduction of knowledge, and also makes the productivity of organizational capitapossible. It seems that some factors can play a mediating role in the relationship between social capital and knowledge creation; and organizational learning ability is one of these factors.Organizational learning ability expresses the ability to create and generalize effective ideas in encounter with various organizational boundaries that operates based on specific management initiatives and methods. Employees increase their abilities in an organization with a high level of learning, to obtain desirable results permanently. Therefore, the mediating role of organizational learning capability in the relationship between social capital and knowledge creation has been investigated in this article.

 The type of research was applied and it was done with descriptive survey method. The random sampling method was stratified and the statistical sample included 343 managers, vice presidents and employees of universities and higher education institutions in Kermanshah province. Data collection was done using 3 questionnaires: Social capital questionnaire (developed by the researcher), organizational learning questionnaire (Onag et al., 2014) and knowledge creation questionnaire (Rahimi et al., 2011). The data was analyzed via the structural equation modeling method and with SMART PLS2 software.

 The results showed that in the structural equation model, social capital has an effect on organizational learning ability (t = β3.017, 0.146), and organizational learning ability has an effect on knowledge creation (t = β14.663, 0.684). Organizational learning ability also plays a mediating role in the relationship between social capital and knowledge creation.

 According to the results, organizational learning ability has the role of mediating variable between social capital (predictor variable) and knowledge creation (criterion variable) and is its explanation. It can be explained that knowledge creation is the most important issue in educational environments, which is always tried to achieve. One of the facilitating factors of knowledge creation in educational environments is the existence of constructive and positive relationships among university members. With the creation of social capital, these components can also be achieved. In other words, the existence of positive and constructive relationships in the shadow of social capital can help to improve knowledge creation in academic environments. Some factors can strengthen this relationship. Organizational learning ability is one of the most important of them. When learning is a priority in an academic environment and the organization is always learning, social capital and positive relationships in it can help and facilitate the necessary conditions for it. This can affect the improvement of organizational knowledge creation because by applying new knowledge in other aspects, it is possible to extract more new knowledge and information. Therefore, it can be concluded that organizational learning ability has a mediating role in the relationship between social capital and knowledge creation. According to these findings, if universities pay attention to social capital and strengthen organizational learning among employees, it can be expected that knowledge creation will grow significantly in universities.