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This paper studies the role of inter-firm supply chain social capital and intra-firm social capital in enabling Corporate Entrepreneurship (CE), and also investigates the moderating and mediating effect of absorptive capacity.

A correlational descriptive survey research is employed for 200 firms; adopting a 13-item Likert scale obtained from Wang and Li (2016) for measuring inter-firm social capital, and an eight item Likert scale for measuring absorptive capacity. This is in addition to a nine item Likert scale obtained from De Clercq et al. (2013) to measure the intra-firm social capital, and a nine item semantic differential scale developed by Covin and Slevin (1989) for measuring the level of corporate entrepreneurship. Statistical analysis packages SPSS V.24 and AMOS V.24 were used.

Results provide evidence that structural supply chain social capital has an effect on corporate entrepreneurship; mediated by potential absorptive capacity. Additionally, the effect of relational supply chain social capital on corporate entrepreneurship is fully mediated by potential absorptive capacity. Furthermore, the effect of cognitive supply chain social capital on corporate entrepreneurship is fully mediated by potential absorptive capacity. On the other hand, results show that both intra-firm social capital and realized absorptive capacity moderate the relationship between potential absorptive capacity and corporate entrepreneurship.

The convenience sampling technique increases the probability of selection bias. In addition, the research focused on two aspects of intra-firm social capital, namely relational and cognitive dimensions, and overlooked the structural dimension of social capital.

Providing managers with insights about the critical role of developing social capital among supply chain partners to facilitate the transfer and exchange of crucial knowledge necessary for product development and innovation. This is in addition to the need to capitalize on intra-collaborations and cross-functional routines to facilitate CE.

This study provides a required extension to the previous literature, which has not empirically modeled the role of potential absorptive capacity as means by which supply chain social capital dimensions enable CE. Also, the research identifies contingency factors that enable the effect of potential absorptive capacity on CE; namely intra-firm social capital and realized absorptive capacity.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the mediating role of potential and realized absorptive capacity in intellectual capital (IC) and business performance. It also investigates the direct impact of the components of IC on business performance.

Partial least square-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to assess the effect of IC dimensions on performance and to analyze the mediating role of absorptive capacity in this relationship. Data were collected from 192 managers using a survey questionnaire with Likert scale items.

The findings of the study show that potential absorptive capacity does not intervene in the relationship between the components of IC and those of business performance. However, realized absorptive capacity, measured as the transformation and exploitation of knowledge, played a positive mediating role in the relationship between the dimensions of IC and those of business performance. Social capital was also noted as a weak predictor of business performance, while human capital and organizational capital had a profound positive influence.

This study contributes to the literature on IC by examining the role of realized and potential absorptive capacity in the relationship between IC components and firm performance. This research also helps practitioners recognize the importance of transformation and the exploitation of knowledge for business performance.

The purpose of this paper is to perform empirical tests to explore the influence of social integration mechanisms on organizations’ absorptive capacities theorized by Zahra and George.

This study uses a cross‐sectional design to test the relationships between potential absorptive capacity, three social integration mechanisms (cross‐functional teams, participation in decision making, and self‐managing teams), and realized absorptive capacity, in a sample of 92 organizations that bid competitively to provide products and services to a US university.

An organization's use of cross‐functional teams is negatively related to its realized absorptive capacity and negatively moderates the relationship between potential and realized absorptive capacity. Self‐managing teams negatively moderate the relationship between an organization's potential absorptive capacity and its realized absorptive capacity.

The cross‐sectional design allows tests of relatedness but does not support cause‐and‐effect inferences.

Managers who follow the prescriptive implications of using social integration mechanisms to enhance their organization's absorptive capacity may actually hinder it. The type of social integration mechanism is an important consideration for managers of firm strategies.

This study extends and challenges the literature on absorptive capacity through its empirical analysis of the role of social integration mechanisms on an organization's absorptive capacity. Social integration mechanisms can have mixed moderating effects on the absorptive capacity development process, and potential absorptive capacity is not easily transformed into realized absorptive capacity. This study expands the context of absorptive capacity beyond R&D settings and incorporates a task environment that allows a direct linking of inputs and outputs.

Absorbing knowledge from partner firms is a key feature of marketing relationships. Recent publications have called for more dynamic and cognitive approaches in marketing relationship research. Also, established definitions of absorptive capacities have been questioned. This article aims to address propositions that take these overlooked and questioned elements into consideration, which can help explain conducts and dependencies, and affect relationship durability.

The authors put forward four propositions by combining literature on interfirm relationships and managerial cognition with evolutionary ideas from marketing and management literature.

The authors embrace a redefinition of potential absorptive capacity (the disposed capacity to absorb knowledge) and realized absorptive capacity (the absorption of knowledge actually performed). This distinction can, to some extent, be explained by the degree of cognitive attention given to the marketing relationship. Moreover, asymmetrically realized absorptive capacity vis‐à‐vis a partner substantially influences the dynamics of partners' conduct and dependency, which may vary the risk that the relationship will end.

The propositions illustrate how a motivated partner that gives more attention to the relationship is more likely to absorb more knowledge than its counterpart, which can threaten the durability of a relationship. Thus, managers need to be able to understand possible long‐term consequences of the partner's conduct in order to avoid losses of joint strategic resources and relational benefits.

By advocating an evolutionary approach, an impetus for more dynamism in marketing relationship research is presented. This study also shows the importance of including the longitudinal dimension in analysis if one wants to understand change in – and durability of – marketing relationships.

Open innovation and information systems have been key topics in the theoretical domain, but little empirical research thoroughly examines how information technology (IT) capability affects open innovation performance. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between IT capability and open innovation performance and to expose the inner mechanism at the firm level.

This paper collected firm-level data in China; 232 usable questionnaires from different firms were collected. Then, the study used a structural equation model by AMOS for hypothesis testing.

The results indicate that both internal IT capability and external IT capability have positive impacts on open innovation performance; potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity mediate the relationship between external IT capability and open innovation performance. Additionally, realized absorptive capacity plays a mediating role in the relationship between internal IT capability and open innovation performance.

These findings indicate that practitioners should pay attention to the important relationship between absorptive capacity and IT capability and open innovation performance in Chinese businesses.

Existing research has emphasized the influence of IT on open innovation, but empirical studies have not thoroughly focused on the inner mechanisms of the effect of IT capability on open innovation performance. Drawing on firm capability theory, this paper classifies IT capability as internal and external IT capability and absorptive capacity as potential and realized absorptive capacity. Then, this paper confirms the mediating role of absorptive capacity between IT capability and open innovation performance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between two types of open innovation (OI) strategies (OI breadth and depth) and innovation performance of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China. The study examines how firms’ absorptive capacity and government institutional support affect these relationships.

Survey data from 236 manufacturing SMEs in China were used to test the proposed model using hierarchical regression analysis.

The results show that both OI breadth and depth are positively related to innovation performance of SMEs. Moreover, this study finds that realized absorptive capacity serves as a mediator in the relationships between OI breadth and depth and innovation performance. The potential absorptive capacity and government institutional support moderate the relationship between OI breadth and innovation performance.

The effectiveness of OI strategies is significantly different among SMEs. One possible explanation is that SMEs adopt different types of OI strategies. Another is that a firm’s absorptive capacity and government institutional support may influence the effectiveness of OI. This study integrates these two possible reasons by investigating the effect of the interplay between different OI strategies, absorptive capacity and government institutional support on SMEs’ innovation performance. This study enriches the research on the relationships between OI strategies and innovation performance of SMEs in the Chinese context.

This study aims to investigate the external knowledge search behaviors in terms of search breadth and search depth in family firms and the resultant product innovation in Indian context. The authors theorize the mediating role of absorptive capacity (potential and realized absorptive capacity) between knowledge sourcing from external sources and product innovation. Further, the authors examine the moderating role of crucial internal social capital of the family firm in enhancing the use of external knowledge for firm innovation activities.

The study uses a quantitative research design taking single informant for collection of data from 151 family small and medium enterprises in automotive sector in India. The authors use structural equation modeling to test hypothesized relationships.

The findings indicate that both search breadth and search depth of family firms are positively associated with product innovation in family firms. The authors also find evidence for partial mediating role of potential and realized absorptive capacity in the relationship between search breadth and innovation and search depth and innovation. The results show how family firms learning taking place while scanning external knowledge sources in terms of external absorptive capacity routines. Finally, the authors find that family firm internal social capital positively moderate the relationship between search breadth and depth, and product innovation.

Family firms need to innovate to remain relevant in the long-run and as such development of superior capabilities is of great significance to them. Family firm managers must be open to external knowledge as such knowledge help them improve the firm level of innovation through absorptive capacity. Further, family firms must realize and act upon the importance of their social capital for the integration and utilization of acquired knowledge.

This paper is amongst a few papers that take dynamic capability views of innovation in family firms wherein the authors theorize how external search breadth and depth lead to the development of potential and realized absorptive capacity in family firms. The importance of family firm internal social capital as a strong integrating and knowledge sharing mechanism that helps family firms transform external knowledge into innovation is also highlighted.

Absorptive capacity is a knowledge-processing ability that hospitality organizations should hone to create competitive advantage in a fierce business environment. This study aims to examine an integrative model explaining how hospitality organizations infuse external knowledge into competitive advantage via absorptive capacity processes and opportunity-capturing abilities.

This study used structural equation modeling, using the R Lavaan package, with 288 survey responses collected from hospitality employees.

Structural equation modeling with multiple indirect relationships presents a holistic picture of how hospitality organizations develop externally acquired knowledge into organizational outcomes through detailed absorptive capacity processes. Unit size is found to positively moderate the indirect relationship between external acquisition and competitive advantage through knowledge transformation only. Competitiveness level negatively moderates indirect relationships through assimilation and transformation.

The findings highlight the importance of hospitality organizations’ knowledge management capabilities through acquisition, assimilation, transformation and exploitation processes. These integrative mechanisms can be facilitated by intraorganizational coordinative processes through collective interpretations and applications of knowledge and effective organizational routines based on management and technical support.

This study proposes an integrative model encompassing a process perspective and the role of intraorganizational coordination in bridging potential and realized absorptive capacity.

The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the impact of organizational intellectual capital (IC) components on absorptive capacity (ACAP) such as potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) and realized absorptive capacity (RACAP). Furthermore, it attempts to investigate the mechanism through which PACAP and RACAP jointly influence innovation strategies (i.e.) exploitative and exploratory innovations.

This is an explanatory research using a deductive approach. This study uses survey data from 184 manufacturing export firms analyzed through partial least squares structural equation modelling.

The results have found that the cognitive and social capital of a firm positively affects PACAP and RACAP, whereas relational capital has a significant effect on RACAP. Moreover, the study reveals that both potential and realized absorptive capacities considerably lead to the development of organizational exploitative and exploratory innovation strategies.

The research focused on two driving factors, i.e. IC components and ACAP dimensions, and overlooked how each component of IC and ACAP influences ambidextrous innovative strategy.

Providing managers with insights about the critical role of developing IC to facilitate the transfer and exchange of crucial absorptive capacity necessary for ambidextrous innovative strategy.

This study makes a significant contribution to the existing literature by highlighting the importance of ACAP and provides useful insights for firms in developing economies to improve their exploitative and exploratory innovation capability. This study likewise reveals the significance of the four dimensions of IC, which can facilitate bringing in knowledge from developing economies.

Despite the established significance of absorptive capacity, there is a worrying lack of research that empirically examines its antecedents. With a call for investigation guided by the knowledge-based theory, the purpose of this paper is to bridge any probable gap by exploring the effect that an organization’s knowledge stock and its knowledge integrating mechanisms have on the development of its absorptive capacity.

On the basis of a survey administered to a sample comprising owners of small Indian automotive firms, this paper empirically examines the direct effect of an organization’s knowledge stock (including knowledge breadth and depth) and the moderating role of its structure-related mechanisms (e.g., formalization) on its potential and realized absorptive capacities. The study uses survey data from 226 small business owners and multiple linear regression analysis to examine the significance of its hypotheses.

The results show that knowledge stock has a statistically notable influence on a small firm’s absorptive capacity. The enabling role of formalization in the relationship between knowledge stock and absorptive capacity is also evident.

Given the handicap of small firms vis-à-vis large firms to deploy internal R&D capabilities, business owners must ensure not to confuse absorptive capacity with the pre-existence of R&D capabilities.

The unbundling of knowledge stock into breadth and depth of knowledge enables business owners and researchers to understand how any particular knowledge stock can relate to an organization’s absorptive capacity.