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Putting the cart (antecedents) before the horse (absorptive capacity): the role of competitive antecedents to the absorptive capacity innovation process

Desmond Ng (Department of Agricultural Economics, Texas A&M University College Station, College Station, Texas, USA)
Leonardo F. Sanchez-Aragon (Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanisticas, Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral, Guayaquil, Ecuador)

Journal of Knowledge Management

ISSN: 1367-3270

Article publication date: 2 December 2021

Issue publication date: 23 September 2022

456

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to theoretically and empirically advance a concept of competitive antecedents to absorptive capacity (AC) research and to explain their relationship to a firm’s innovative performance. A firm’s competitive antecedents involve a relative advantage in a firm’s ability to access external knowledge – (i.e. relative advantage in external knowledge flows) – and a relative advantage in appropriating these external knowledge flows (i.e. relative advantage in appropriability regime).

Design/methodology/approach

By drawing on network and market share explanations, hypotheses were developed in which a firm’s AC is argued to mediate the influence of these competitive antecedents on a firm’s innovations. In using linear and negative binomial estimation methods, a mediation analysis of the US biotechnology industry was conducted.

Findings

A firm’s competitive antecedents have a positive influence on a firm’s AC and that these influences indirectly impact a biotechnology firm’s product innovations.

Originality/value

While a firm’s innovation is widely attributed to its AC, this study’s concept of competitive antecedents shows that a firm’s competitive advantage lies upstream from its AC.

Keywords

Citation

Ng, D. and Sanchez-Aragon, L.F. (2022), "Putting the cart (antecedents) before the horse (absorptive capacity): the role of competitive antecedents to the absorptive capacity innovation process", Journal of Knowledge Management, Vol. 26 No. 9, pp. 2306-2332. https://doi.org/10.1108/JKM-07-2021-0518

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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