Learning apart or together? The relationships of the social interdependence orientation and social competence of owner-managers with their social learning behaviour and firm performance within a Korean small-business context

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of dependent and independent variables.

Variable	Values
Dependent Variables
Family learning behaviour in the past three years	Five-point Likert-scale ranging from 1 (very low degree) to 5 (very high degree), and 0 (not applicable)
Peer learning behaviour in the past three years	See above
Expert learning behaviour	See above
PSY (Piglets weaned per sow per year)	Dividing the number of piglets that were weaned by the average number of sows on the farm in the past year.
MSY (finishing pigs marketed per sow per year)	Dividing the number of pigs delivered to the slaughterhouse by the average number of sows in one year
Independents Variables
Social perception	Five-point Likert-scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree)
Self-promotion	See above
Social learning orientation	See above
Individualistic	See above
Competitive	See above
Cooperative	See above
Control variables
Cooperative (representing a region in the Republic of Korea)	A value of 1 indicates that the respondent was a member of a cooperative OTHER THAN the Bookyoung cooperative (i.e. Dodram, Daejeon-Chungnam, Paju-Yeoncheon or Jeju).
Managerial experience	Years of experience as a pig producer (four categories: ≤5, 6–10, 11–15 and ≥16 years)
Age	Age of the owner-manager (seven categories: <20, 20–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–59, 60–69 and ≥ 70 years)
Education	A value of 0 means that the respondent had not completed any post-secondary education, and a value of 1 indicates that the respondent had completed some post-secondary education.

Table 2. Measurement properties of the final social scales used in the study.

Scale	Items	α
Social perception	4	0.70
Self-promotion	3	0.70
Social learning orientation*	3	0.41
Individualistic orientation	5	0.78
Competitive orientation	8	0.82
Cooperative orientation	5	0.63

Note: * left out in further analyses

Table 3. Mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) of the respondents’ scores on the various dependent variables for owner-managers with and without post-secondary education.

	Family learning behaviour		Peer learning behaviour		Expert learning behaviour		Piglets weaned per sow per year		Finishing pigs marketed per sow per year
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Post-secondary education (n = 64)	2.83^a	0.88	3.42^b	0.73	3.78^b	0.75	4.27^a	1.07	3.05^a	1.03
Primary/secondary education (n = 82)	3.01^a	0.97	3.13^a	0.91	3.43^a	0.92	4.05^a	1.33	2.95^a	1.22

Note: Mean values with different letters indicate significant differences (p < 0.05) between owner-managers with and without post-secondary education for each column (dependent variable).

Table 4. Means (M) and Standard deviation (SD) of scores on the various dependent variables for the different cooperatives.

	Family learning behaviour		Peer learning behaviour		Expert learning behaviour		Piglets weaned per sow per year		Finishing pigs marketed per sow per year
	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD	M	SD
Dodram (n = 16)	3.19^a	1.05	3.69^a	0.60	3.94^b	0.68	4.38^b	0.96	3.44^b	0.89
Daejeon-Chungnam (n = 32)	2.69^a	1.03	3.06^a	0.76	3.03^a	0.89	3.97^ab	1.03	2.84^ab	0.98
Bookyoung (n = 60)	2.83^a	0.99	3.28^a	0.85	3.77^b	0.67	4.77^b	1.03	3.23^ab	1.33
Jeju (n = 23)	3.17^a	0.49	3.17^a	0.88	3.70^b	1.02	3.26^a	1.21	2.39^a	0.84
Paju-Yeoncheon (n = 17)	2.88^a	0.86	3.24^a	1.03	3.47^ab	0.87	3.18^a	1.07	2.71^ab	0.77

Note: Mean values with different letters indicate significant differences (p < 0.05) between cooperatives for each column (dependent variable).

Table 5. Correlation between the independent and dependent variables.

	Individual	Competitive	Cooperation	Social perception	Self-Promotion	Peer learning behaviour	Family learning behaviour	Expert learning behaviour	PSY
Competitive	−0.11
Cooperation	−0.39**	0.39**
Social perception	0.04	0.44**	0.38**
Self-promotion	−0.01	0.41**	0.28**	0.35**
Peer learning behaviour	−0.24**	0.30**	0.45**	0.22**	0.31**
Family learning behaviour	−0.04	0.21**	0.21**	0.11	0.25**	0.14
Expert learning behaviour	−0.26**	0.25**	0.37**	0.18*	0.19*	0.48**	0.15
PSY	−0.12	0.09	0.05	0.08	0.04	0.24**	0.09	0.37**
MSY	−0.03	0.11	0.03	0.04	0.08	0.17*	0.11	0.36**	0.73**

Note: * = p < 0.05; ** = p < 0.01, PSY = piglets weaned per sow per year, MSY = finishing pigs marketed per sow per year.

Table 6. Background variables, social competence and interdependence orientations as predictors of three types of learning behaviours.

	Family learning behaviour ^1			Peer learning behaviour ^2			Expert learning behaviour ^1
	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β
Model 1
(Constant)	2.85	0.56		3.42	0.45		3.91	0.46
Dodram	0.52	0.29	0.16	0.56	0.24	0.20*	0.00	0.24	0.00
Daejeon-Chungnam	0.10	0.19	0.05	0.02	0.15	0.01	−0.60	0.16	−0.31**
Jeju	0.44	0.23	0.17	−0.12	0.19	−0.05	−0.16	0.19	−0.07
Paju-Yeoncheon	0.02	0.26	0.01	0.18	0.21	0.07	−0.11	0.22	−0.04
Experience	−0.05	0.13	−0.04	−0.18	0.10	−0.20	0.01	0.10	0.01
Age	0.05	0.10	0.05	0.09	0.08	0.11	−0.06	0.08	−0.07
Education	−0.30	0.21	−0.16	0.08	0.16	0.05	0.25	0.17	0.14
Model 2
(Constant)	0.53	1.00		0.94	0.68		1.64	0.73
Dodram	0.36	0.28	0.11	0.43	0.21	0.16*	−0.12	0.23	−0.04
Daejeon-Chungnam	0.08	0.20	0.04	0.06	0.14	0.03	−0.58	0.15	−0.30**
Jeju	0.35	0.22	0.13	−0.23	0.17	−0.10	−0.24	0.18	−0.10
Paju-Yeoncheon	−0.28	0.27	−0.09	−0.21	0.20	−0.08	−0.41	0.22	−0.14
Experience	−0.05	0.13	−0.05	−0.22	0.09	−0.24*	0.00	0.09	0.00
Age	0.06	0.10	0.07	0.13	0.07	0.16	−0.04	0.08	−0.05
Education	−0.28	0.20	−0.15	0.07	0.14	0.04	0.26	0.16	0.15
Social Perception	−0.07	0.16	−0.04	−0.04	0.12	−0.03	−0.03	0.12	−0.02
Self-promotion	0.30	0.13	0.21*	0.25	0.10	0.20**	0.17	0.10	0.13
Individual	0.04	0.13	0.03	−0.14	0.09	−0.12	−0.08	0.09	−0.06
Competitive	0.09	0.14	0.06	0.13	0.10	0.10	0.14	0.11	0.10
Cooperative	0.33	0.18	0.18	0.49	0.13	0.31**	0.44	0.14	0.26**

Note: The Bookyoung cooperative is taken as the reference for the other four cooperatives. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, ¹ ΔR from Model 1 to 2 = 0.09 (p < 0.05),² ΔR from Model 1 to 2 = 0.25 (p < 0.001), ³ ΔR from Model 1 to 2 = 0.15 (p < 0.001)

Table 7. Background variables, social competence, interdependence orientations and learning behaviours as predictors of two technical performance measures.

	Piglets weaned per sow per year^1			Finishing pigs marketed per sow per year^2
	B	SE B	β	B	SE B	β
Model 1
(Constant)	4.55	0.67		2.55	0.70
Dodram	−0.45	0.33	−0.11	0.24	0.35	0.06
Daejeon-Chungnam	−0.87	0.24	−0.30**	−0.40	0.25	−0.14
Jeju	−1.56	0.27	−0.46**	−0.78	0.28	−0.25**
Paju-Yeoncheon	−1.52	0.29	−0.40**	−0.44	0.30	−0.12
Experience	0.07	0.15	0.05	0.13	0.15	0.10
Age	−0.03	0.12	−0.03	0.02	0.13	0.02
Education	0.32	0.24	0.13	0.19	0.25	0.08
Model 2
(Constant)	3.08	1.21		1.52	1.28
Dodram	−0.55	0.33	−0.14	0.18	0.36	0.05
Daejeon-Chungnam	−0.88	0.24	−0.30**	−0.42	0.26	−0.15
Jeju	−1.64	0.28	−0.49**	−0.82	0.29	−0.27**
Paju-Yeoncheon	−1.78	0.31	−0.46**	−0.51	0.33	−0.15
Experience	0.07	0.15	0.04	0.14	0.16	0.11
Age	−0.03	0.12	−0.02	0.02	0.13	0.02
Education	0.30	0.24	0.12	0.21	0.26	0.09
Social Perception	−0.09	0.20	−0.04	−0.12	0.21	−0.06
Self-promotion	0.21	0.16	0.11	0.05	0.17	0.03
Individual	−0.03	0.15	−0.01	0.06	0.16	0.04
Competitive	−0.10	0.18	−0.05	0.13	0.19	0.07
Cooperative	0.43	0.22	0.18	0.19	0.24	0.08
Model 3
(Constant)	2.49	1.14		0.83	1.20
Dodram	−0.56	0.32	−0.14	0.22	0.34	0.06
Daejeon-Chungnam	−0.52	0.24	−0.18**	0.04	0.26	0.01
Jeju	−1.55	0.26	−0.46**	−0.74	0.27	−0.24**
Paju-Yeoncheon	−1.48	0.30	−0.39**	−0.23	0.31	−0.06
Experience	0.05	0.15	0.04	0.12	0.15	0.09
Age	−0.02	0.12	−0.02	0.02	0.12	0.02
Education	0.16	0.23	0.07	0.02	0.25	0.01
Social Perception	−0.08	0.19	−0.04	−0.11	0.20	−0.05
Self-promotion	0.07	0.16	0.04	−0.09	0.17	−0.05
Individual	0.00	0.14	0.00	0.10	0.15	0.06
Competitive	−0.14	0.17	−0.07	0.09	0.18	0.05
Cooperative	0.07	0.23	0.03	−0.15	0.24	−0.07
Peer learning behaviour	0.09	0.12	0.07	0.00	0.13	0.00
Family learning behaviour	0.13	0.09	0.10	0.11	0.10	0.09
Expert learning behaviour	0.45	0.12	0.32**	0.58	0.13	0.44**

Note: The Bookyoung cooperative is taken as the reference for the other four cooperatives. ** p < 0.01, ¹ ΔR² from Model 1 to 2 = 0.04 (ns), ΔR² from Model 2 to 3 = 0.10 (p < 0.001), ² ΔR² from Model 1 to 2 = 0.014 (ns), ΔR² from Model 2 to 3 = 0.14 (p < 0.001).