In this study, we examine the moderation effect of absorptive capacity on the performance consequences of diversification experiences. We suggest that absorptive capacity positively moderates the performance effects of product and international diversification experiences and those of unrelatedness in product and international diversification experiences. An empirical analysis conducted using a longitudinal dataset of Indian firms, from knowledge-intensive manufacturing sectors, for the period 2008–2018, broadly supports our arguments. Findings imply that firms with superior absorptive capacity can acquire and leverage knowledge from their diversification experiences effectively and mitigate the risks of negative transfer associated with unrelatedness in diversification experiences. Findings contribute to the organizational learning literature by examining the role of absorptive capacity in enabling performance outcomes of diversification experiences.

This paper examines professional and organizational-level antecedents of public sector innovation using findings from a 9-month ethnography conducted within the marketing department of a large UK postal organization. The analysis centres on vignettes of two cross-functional projects to develop product and service innovations that involved external design agencies. The data are based on observation of the marketing teams, semi-structured interviews, and documentary analysis. The study highlights that social practices characteristic of communities of practice are antecedent to the generation of absorptive capacity, but also shows that the learning produced by communities of practice is mediated by relations of power associated with these groups and interaction with organizational absorptive capacity. This paper develops the theory of absorptive capacity by shifting attention away from ‘prior knowledge’ in enabling acquisition of external knowledge to highlighting the role of intensive interaction, organizational context, and power relations in shaping knowledge creation for learning and innovation.

This study uses a sample of technological mergers and acquisitions (M&As) of A-share listed companies in the five major high-tech industries from 2012 to 2016, and conducts factor analysis to measure the heterogeneity of these enterprises in terms of financial slack resources, equity resources, and governance structure. On this basis, multivariate regression analysis is utilized to explore the influence of the acquiring firms' heterogeneity on their innovation performance, and the adjustment action of absorptive capacity between heterogeneity and innovation performance. The research results show that the slack financial resources and highly centralized equity structure of enterprises are not conducive to enterprises improving their innovation performance following a technological M&A, while the impact of governance structure on innovation performance following an M&A is similarly not significant. The empirical evidence provided offer insights and a decision reference for technological M&As of high-tech enterprises.

Extant spillover literature explains domestic firms' productivity change mainly by the presence and attributes of foreign direct investment. In contrary, this paper, by adopting a routine-based model of absorptive capacity, intends to explore how domestic firms absorb spillovers over time. Based on a qualitative study of a domestic firm in China's silicone adhesive industry, the findings show that unbounded by geographical constraints, domestic firms enact their external absorptive capacity routines to actively search for spillovers from multinational enterprises (MNEs) at both national and international levels. Moreover, rather than searching for what is available, domestic firms are selective for spillovers that are coherent with their business strategies. The most unexpected finding is that domestic firms diligently acquire spillovers from MNEs and from local competitors in combination. Spillovers acquired from local competitors are used to increase the inferential accuracy of spillovers acquired from MNEs about strategic successes. Further, instead of absorbing spillovers from MNEs which pose moderate technology gaps, domestic firms target at MNEs which exhibit wider technology gaps, and undertake organizational learning and develop complementary assets to enhance their internal absorptive capacity routines. Socially enabling mechanisms are found to facilitate domestic firms' absorption of spillovers by employee turnover.

In this paper, we explored the role of knowledge sharing on team creativity through absorptive capacity and knowledge integration, and tested the condition under which knowledge sharing is positively related to absorptive capacity and knowledge integration. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 86 knowledge worker teams involving 381 employees and employers in China. Results demonstrate that knowledge sharing was positively related to team creativity, fully mediated by both absorptive capacity and knowledge integration. In addition, cognitive team diversity played a moderating role in the relationship between knowledge sharing and absorptive capacity, as well as in the relationship between knowledge sharing and knowledge integration. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings on knowledge management and team creativity are discussed.

This research analyses the effects of the knowledge overlap between acquirer and target firms on the performance of technological mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Extending previous research that has focused on the quantitative characteristics of knowledge, this research introduces a framework capturing the effects of both the quantity and quality of knowledge in overlapped and nonoverlapped parts of the knowledge base on subsequent innovation performance. Analyzing a data set of 192 technological M&As of 162 high-technology firms from 2001 to 2009, the results show that a high quality of overlapped knowledge has a positive effect on subsequent innovation performance, while the effect is negative for nonoverlapped knowledge quality. In addition, this research investigates the influence of the knowledge quantity on subsequent innovation performance. The implication of this research is that the knowledge overlap in technological M&As is essential for acquiring high-quality knowledge from the target firm and for improving innovation performance.

While ‘open innovation’ is often considered to be an organisational strategy with universal application, its generalisability and applicability to organisations operating within emerging economies has yet to be fully explored. This study provides empirical evidence of its importance within a substantial sample of Chinese large firms and small and medium enterprises. Using Tobit regression analysis, our findings indicate that external knowledge sources from inter-firm networking are more important in creating the benefits of open innovation for Chinese small and medium enterprises than their larger peers. Linkages to university and research institutes generally have few direct effects on the innovation performance of both large and small firms in China. However, the role of universities and research institutes is shown to be important among our large firm sample when combined with evident internal absorptive capacity. This interaction is generally limited to our large firm sample, and is not as evident among small firms.

Our study indicates that the barriers to the adoption of open innovation by Chinese firms might be largely related to the comparatively weak domestic research expertise and limited organisational absorptive capabilities, with this most particularly evident for small and medium enterprises.

These findings suggest that, based on this evidence, there is no need for emerging economies like China to mimic the emergence path from closed to open innovation followed by developed countries. Chinese firms will be more likely to garner the benefits available from openness when they develop the capabilities required to identify, assimilate and commercialise knowledge and technologies obtained from external sources.

The objective of this paper is to deepen our understanding of the role of absorptive capacity in enabling interorganizational new product development (INPD). We contend that despite what is known about the benefits of absorptive capacity to innovating firms, this research is dominated by firm-level analyses using cross-sectional data. The accumulated knowledge about absorptive capacity thus does not help with understanding how absorptive capacity unfolds as a process within and between firms such as when firms collaborate in new product development. Using a longitudinal case study, we build new theory at the INPD system level of analysis that leads us to shed new light on the cross-level interactions between firm- and alliance-level absorptive capacities.