Researchers have used the absorptive capacity construct to explain various organizational phenomena. In this article we review the literature to identify key dimensions of absorptive capacity and offer a reconceptualization of this construct. Building upon the dynamic capabilities view of the firm, we distinguish between a firm's potential and realized capacity. We then advance a model outlining the conditions when the firm's potential and realized capacities can differentially influence the creation and sustenance of its competitive advantage.

https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5629&context=lkcsb_research

Absorptive Capacity: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension

The paper is concerned with spatial clustering of economic activity and its relation to the spatiality of knowledge creation in interactive learning processes. It questions the view that tacit knowledge transfer is confined to local milieus whereas codified knowledge may roam the globe almost frictionlessly. The paper highlights the conditions under which both tacit and codified knowledge can be exchanged locally and globally. A distinction is made between, on the one hand, the learning processes taking place among actors embedded in a community by just being there dubbed buzz and, on the other, the knowledge attained by investing in building channels of communication called pipelines to selected providers located outside the local milieu. It is argued that the co-existence of high levels of buzz and many pipelines may provide firms located in outward-looking and lively clusters with a string of particular advantages not available to outsiders. Finally, some policy implications, stemming from this argumen...

/pdf/clusters-and-knowledge-local-buzz-global-pipelines-and-the-29bsuyvekg.pdf

Clusters and knowledge: local buzz, global pipelines and the process of knowledge creation

While exploration and exploitation represent two fundamentally different approaches to organizational learning, recent literature has increasingly indicated the need for firms to achieve a balance between the two. This balanced view is embedded in the concept of ambidextrous organizations. However, there is little direct evidence of the positive effect of ambidexterity on firm performance. This paper seeks to test the ambidexterity hypothesis by examining how exploration and exploitation can jointly influence firm performance in the context of firms' approach to technological innovation. Based on a sample of 206 manufacturing firms, we find evidence consistent with the ambidexterity hypothesis by showing that (1) the interaction between explorative and exploitative innovation strategies is positively related to sales growth rate, and (2) the relative imbalance between explorative and exploitative innovation strategies is negatively related to sales growth rate.

Exploration vs. Exploitation: An Empirical Test of the Ambidexterity Hypothesis

The emergent literature on dynamic capabilities and their role in value creation is riddled with inconsistencies, overlapping definitions, and outright contradictions. Yet, the theoretical and practical importance of developing and applying dynamic capabilities to sustain a firm's competitive advantage in complex and volatile external environments has catapulted this issue to the forefront of the research agendas of many scholars. In this paper, we offer a definition of dynamic capabilities, separating them from substantive capabilities as well as from their antecedents and consequences. We also present a set of propositions that outline (1) how substantive capabilities and dynamic capabilities are related to one another, (2) how this relationship is moderated by organizational knowledge and skills, (3) how organizational age affects the speed of utilization of dynamic capabilities and the learning mode used in organizational change, and (4) how organizational knowledge and market dynamism affect the likely value of dynamic capabilities. Our discussion and model help to delineate key differences in the dynamic capabilities that new ventures and established companies have, revealing a key source of strategic heterogeneity between these firms.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2006.00616.x

Entrepreneurship and Dynamic Capabilities: A Review, Model and Research Agenda

We conduct a detailed analysis of 289 absorptive capacity papers from 14 journals to assess how the construct has been utilized, examine the key papers in the field, and identify the substantive contributions to the broader literature using a thematic analysis. We argue that research in this area is fundamentally driven by five critical assumptions that we conclude have led to its reification and that this reification has led to stifling of research in this area. To address this, we propose a model of absorptive capacity processes, antecedents, and outcomes.

The Reification of Absorptive Capacity: A Critical Review and Rejuvenation of the Construct

This paper advances the understanding of absorptive capacity for assimilating new knowledge as a mediating variable of organization adaptation. Many scholars suggest a firm's absorptive capacity plays a key role in the process of coevolution (Lewin et al., this issue). So far, most publications, in following Cohen and Levinthal (1990), have considered the level of prior related knowledge as the determinant of absorptive capacity. We suggest, however, that two specific organizational determinants of absorptive capacity should also be considered: organization forms and combinative capabilities. We will show how these organizational determinants influence the level of absorptive capacity, ceteris paribus the level of prior related knowledge. Subsequently, we will develop a framework in which absorptive capacity is related to both micro- and macrocoevolutionary effects. This framework offers an explanation of how knowledge environments coevolve with the emergence of organization forms and combinative capabilities that are suitable for absorbing knowledge. We will illustrate the framework by discussing two longitudinal case studies of traditional publishing firms moving into the turbulent knowledge environment of an emerging multimedia industrial complex.

Coevolution of Firm Absorptive Capacity and Knowledge Environment: Organizational Forms and Combinative Capabilities

Due to technological convergence, complexes of interrelated industries are emerging. This paper presents a conceptual framework of the role different organizational forms and combinative capabilities play in the management of organizational knowledge integration in this context. The focus is on firms previously operating in one of the relatively stable constituting industries. We argue that a firm's organizational form has to be matched with appropriate combinative capabilities in order to integrate component knowledge into architectural knowledge that consequently serves as a platform for generating new product-market combinations. The framework is empirically illustrated using the example of two Dutch publishing firms moving into the multimedia complex, which is currently emerging around information and communication technologies. The empirical analysis shows that the framework offers strong potential for improving the understanding of the complex process of organizational knowledge integration, as the prerequisite for developing new business in an emerging industrial complex.

Managing Organizational Knowledge Integration in the Emerging Multimedia Complex

A method and system to facilitate on-line transactions is presented. An example system, in one embodiment, comprises a content scanner, a security symbol resolver, a web page manipulator, an event detector, and a trading ticket activator. The content scanner may be configured to scan a web page in order to detect security symbol information. The page manipulator may be configured to insert a trading control into the web page to produce a trade-enabled web page. The trading control may be used by users accessing the trade-enabled web page to initiate trades using the trading service associated with the trading control. The system may be provided on a client (e.g., as a browser plug-in) or on a server, as a trading access module associated with a particular web site.

Method and system to facilitate on-line trading

Hoe herkennen organisaties in hun omgeving nieuwe kennis?
Hoe kunnen ze zich deze kennis eigen maken? En wellicht nog belangrijker,
hoe kunnen ze deze kennis commercieel toepassen? In dit artikel
wordt het kennisabsorberend vermogen van een onderneming aan een
nader onderzoek onderworpen. Dit vermogen heeft een belangrijke
invloed op de mate waarin nieuwe kennis uit de omgeving wordt opgenomen
en gebruikt voor succesvolle innovaties. Cohen en Levinthal (1990)
veronderstellen dat eerdere kennis die een onderneming heeft opgedaan
in de loop van de tijd, van doorslaggevend belang is voor haar absorberend
vermogen. In dit artikel beargumenteren we dat niet alleen de huidige
kennisbasis van een onderneming haar kennisabsorberend vermogen
bepaalt. Organisatiekenmerken zijn eveneens van belang. We tonen aan
dat zowel de gekozen organisatievorm als het repertoire van combinative
– verbindende – vaardigheden van een onderneming (systeem-, management-
en socialisatievaardigheden) het kennisabsorptievermogen bepalen.
We ontwikkelen eerst een raamwerk waarin kennisabsorptie van een
onderneming wordt gerelateerd aan de dynamiek van de kennisomgeving.
Het raamwerk wordt vervolgens geillustreerd aan de hand van een case
over Het Financieele Dagblad. Door transformatie van haar dominante
organisatievorm tezamen met het ontwikkelen van nieuwe verbindende
vaardigheden, kon deze voorheen traditionele uitgeverij zich begeven in
de turbulente kennisomgeving van de bedrijfstakken die samen het multimediacomplex
vormen.

Michiel de Boer

Papers

Coevolution of Firm Absorptive Capacity and Knowledge Environment: Organizational Forms and Combinative Capabilities

Managing Organizational Knowledge Integration in the Emerging Multimedia Complex

Method and system to facilitate on-line trading

Kennisabsorptie van ondernemingen: Hoe co-evolueren ondernemingen in een dynamische kennisomgeving?