The influence of social capital on primary school teachers' creative teaching behavior: Mediating effects of knowledge sharing and creative teaching self-efficacy

•Explores relationship between social capital and teachers' creative teaching behavior.•Conducted surveys of 415 teachers in 36 primary schools in Jiangsu, China.•Social capital positively predicted primary school teachers’ creative behavior.•This effect was mediated by knowledge sharing and creative teaching self-efficacy. Based on social capital theory, this study attempts to investigate the underlying relationship between social capital and teachers' Creative Teaching Behavior (CTB) in school organizations, and further reveal the mechanism of social capital's effect on teachers' CTB, to provide insight into improving teachers' CTB. Random cluster sampling was used. The research model was developed by reviewing the literature and tested with survey data collected from 415 teachers in 36 primary schools from Jiangsu province, China. Teachers completed the Social Capital Questionnaire, Knowledge Sharing Questionnaire, Creative Teaching Self-efficacy Questionnaire, and Questionnaire on CTB. Demographic variables including gender, teaching experience, educational level, and professional title, were all controlled. Finally, we conducted structural equation modelling to simultaneously estimate direct and indirect effects in the case of clustered data. Results revealed that social capital positively predicted primary school teachers’ CTB; and that social capital influenced teachers’ CTB through the single mediating effect of knowledge sharing and the chain mediating effect of knowledge sharing and creative teaching self-efficacy. The findings not only indicated that social capital affected CTB directly, but also indirectly through knowledge sharing and creative teaching self-efficacy as mediator roles. This study has both theoretical and empirical implications for teachers' CTB.