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1 – 10 of 291Che-Yuan Chang, Yi-Ying Chang, Yu-Chung Tsao and Sascha Kraus
This paper aims to explore the relationship between top management team bricolage and performance and also examines unit ambidexterity's mediating role. More essentially, to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the relationship between top management team bricolage and performance and also examines unit ambidexterity's mediating role. More essentially, to understand the black box of organizational knowledge dynamism, a multilevel moderated mediating model is established by exploring the effects of two firm-level moderators, namely, potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity.
Design/methodology/approach
To test the cross-level moderated mediation model, this study used multisource data from 90 R&D units in 45 Taiwanese manufacturing firms through two-wave surveys and retrieving the archival data for assessing unit performance.
Findings
This study’s evidence revealed that unit-level ambidexterity mediates the effect between firm-level top management teams’ (TMT) bricolage and unit-level performance. This study also found that firm-level potential absorptive capacity positively moderates the effect between firm-level TMT bricolage and unit-level ambidexterity. Moreover, firm-level realized absorptive capacity strengthens the indirect relationships between firm-level TMT bricolage and unit-level performance via unit-level ambidexterity. The findings shed light on how and why TMT bricolage influences unit ambidexterity and performance in knowledge-intensive sectors.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the existing knowledge-based theory literature by disentangling the association between top management team bricolage and unit performance and identifying the pivotal role of absorptive capacity at both the firm and unit levels.
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Elidjen Elidjen, Asri Pertiwi, Tirta Nugraha Mursitama and Jap Tji Beng
Digital start-ups have limited resources. With the demands of rapid growth, digital start-ups need to rely on their ability to explore external knowledge and exploit it into swift…
Abstract
Purpose
Digital start-ups have limited resources. With the demands of rapid growth, digital start-ups need to rely on their ability to explore external knowledge and exploit it into swift innovation. Developing absorptive capacity is an alternative to overcome this difficulty. This study aims to demonstrate how the potential and realized an increase in absorptive capacity enables organizations to innovate moderated by structural ambidexterity. Empirical evidence places more emphasis on the impact of absorptive capacity on innovation but still leaves the “black-box” question of innovation and how potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) can achieve realized absorptive capacity (RACAP).
Design/methodology/approach
This study tests, with a structural equation model, samples collected from 143 digital start-ups in Indonesia.
Findings
The finding of this study suggests that PACAP influences the ability to innovate only if RACAP mediates it and structural ambidexterity positively moderates the relationship between these two variables.
Research limitations/implications
First, this study uses digital start-up organizations as respondents. Second, this study explores the role of the structural ambidexterity that moderates the relationship between PACAP and RACAP manifested in digital start-ups organizations that are identical to temporary companies with limited resources. Third, digital start-ups have a fast-growth life cycle, unlike regular companies. Finally, the validated scale is based on data collected entirely from digital start-ups located in Indonesia, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other industry contexts.
Practical implications
Start-ups suffer from the ability to innovate that increases their propensity to fail. They overcome this failure by increasing the absorptive capacity of the founding team to improve their ability to innovate. Because of limited resources available at digital start-ups, the flexibility of their management style can overcome these barriers, allowing the pursuit of both knowledge exploration and exploitation in a balanced way.
Originality/value
Most of the studies explained that the ability to innovate comes from absorptive capacity. In fact, they do not explore PACAP and RACAP and their relationships. Moreover, the studies also indicated that the contextual ambidexterity moderated PACAP and RACAP. Meanwhile, digital start-ups in this study revealed that structural ambidexterity with two dimensions, i.e. shared value, and behavioral integration, enables and positively moderates the relationship between PACAP and RACAP.
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Ida Gremyr, Andrea Birch-Jensen, Maneesh Kumar and Nina Löfberg
The purpose is to understand how the role of quality functions might evolve amidst digitalisation and an increased focus on services. This study focuses on customer feedback and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose is to understand how the role of quality functions might evolve amidst digitalisation and an increased focus on services. This study focuses on customer feedback and how it can function as activation triggers for developing absorptive capacity, as well as how it relates to the value creation processes.
Design/methodology/approach
Following a qualitative research design, the authors gathered primary data from interviews with quality managers at 17 UK and Swedish firms and triangulated it with secondary information from the firms' web pages.
Findings
The findings show that customer feedback-based activation triggers can support development of absorptive capacity in the quality function if there are established processes for acting on customer feedback. This is often the case for codified feedback, which normally concerns products. However, digitalisation offers new opportunities of engaging in value co-creation, and firms need to develop digital capabilities to manage new technologies and data analytic tools. For personalised feedback (the main category of service-related feedback), established processes are missing.
Originality/value
This study work contributes to knowledge about how quality functions respond to customer feedback on both products and services. It clarifies why the quality function sometimes struggles to contribute to service quality as much as to product quality. From a theory development perspective, the authors contribute to understanding customer feedback-based activation triggers, how they lead to development of absorptive capacity and their relation to value co-creation on a functional level.
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Blendi Gerdoçi, Nertila Busho, Daniela Lena and Marco Cucculelli
This paper explores the relationships between firm absorptive capacity, novel business model design (NBMD), product differentiation strategy and performance in a transition…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper explores the relationships between firm absorptive capacity, novel business model design (NBMD), product differentiation strategy and performance in a transition economy.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses structural equation modeling (SEM) to analyze firm-level data from a unique sample of Albanian manufacturing and service firms.
Findings
The study shows that absorptive capacity enables and shapes the NBMD that, in turn, leads to performance gains. The authors also find that the NBMD capacity mediates the impact of realized absorptive capacity on performance, whereas product differentiation strategy moderates the relationship between new business model and performance.
Research limitations/implications
All variables were measured based on a self-assessed scale leading to potential method bias. Also, based on relevant literature, the study focuses on only one type of business model (BM) design.
Practical implications
Since dynamic capabilities are the foundation of NBMD, firms should invest carefully in developing such capabilities. Thus, the study results provide an integrative framework for understanding the role of absorptive capacity in NBMD adoption and for explaining the relationship between NBMD adoption and performance, an aspect that helps organizations in a dynamic environment.
Originality/value
This study strives to investigate the relationships between absorptive capacity, business model design, product strategies and performance by answering the call of Teece (2018) to “flesh out the details” of such relationships.
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Sergio David Cuéllar, Maria Teresa Fernandez-Bajón and Felix de Moya-Anegón
This study aimed to examine the similarities and differences between the ability to analyze the environment and exploit new knowledge (absorptive capacity) and the skills to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to examine the similarities and differences between the ability to analyze the environment and exploit new knowledge (absorptive capacity) and the skills to generate value from innovation (appropriation). These fields have similar origins and are sometimes confused by practitioners and academics.
Design/methodology/approach
A review was conducted based on a full-text analysis of 681 and 431 papers on appropriation and absorptive capacity, respectively, from Scopus, Science Direct and Lens, using methodologies such as text mining, backward citation analysis, modularity clustering and latent Dirichlet allocation analysis.
Findings
In business disciplines, the fields are considered different; however, in other disciplines, it was found that some authors defined them quite similarly. The citation analysis results showed that appropriation was more relevant to absorptive capacity, or vice versa. From the dimension perspective, it was found that although appropriation was considered a relevant element for absorptive capacity, the last models did not include it. Finally, it was found that studies on both topics identified the importance of appropriation and absorptive capacity for innovation performance, knowledge management and technology transfer.
Originality/value
This is one of the first studies to examine in-depth the relationship between appropriation and absorptive capacity, bridging a gap in both fields.
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Stephanie Moura, Christian Daniel Falaster and Thomas C. Lawton
This study aims to explore how the absorptive capacity of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) facilitates increased acquirer performance in industry exploration and technology…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how the absorptive capacity of emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) facilitates increased acquirer performance in industry exploration and technology exploration cross-border acquisitions (CBAs).
Design/methodology/approach
The research context for this study is Brazilian EMNEs and their CBAs. The final database contains 101 CBAs.
Findings
The authors find that industry exploration strategies negatively affect financial performance, but technology exploration strategies have a positive effect. The acquirer’s absorptive capacity can exacerbate the negative effects, except in instances of technology exploration strategies, where there is a demonstrable benefit from the acquirer’s absorptive capacity.
Originality/value
The study contributes first by providing a more nuanced understanding of the effects of absorptive capacity on postacquisition performance, depending on the type of knowledge explored. Second, by drawing on EMNE learning perspectives, the authors demonstrate the versatility of absorptive capacity in emerging markets.
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The paper aims to explore the knowledge management and innovative outputs (IO) of university-based technology business incubators funded by the Department of Science and…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to explore the knowledge management and innovative outputs (IO) of university-based technology business incubators funded by the Department of Science and Technology in the Philippines.
Design/methodology/approach
The respondents, which include heads, managers, coordinators, and staff,were reached out via email using a database. The instrument was generally adopted from various related studies in the literature. Data were analyzed quantitively using partial least squares – structural equations modeling.
Findings
The main findings reveal that the mediated relationship between potential absorptive capacity (PACAP), realized absorptive capacity (RACAP) and IO explained 38.7% of the variance both predicted by PACAP and mainly explained by RACAP. Among new organizational antecedents measured, slack resources and willingness to cannibalize did not predict PACAP, while tolerance for failure and external openness predicted PACAP. Consequently, PACAP and RACAP positively mediated the relationship between significant organizational antecedents and IO.
Originality/value
The validation of the positive and significant link of absorptive capacity (ACAP) and innovation with an emphasis on the Philippine context. The study pointed out the unidimensionality of PACAP and RACAP as a single ACAP variable and not two separate constructs.
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The purpose of the study is to investigate how the processes of exploration and exploitation have developed in parallel in the literature of organizational ambidexterity and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to investigate how the processes of exploration and exploitation have developed in parallel in the literature of organizational ambidexterity and organizational learning, since James March published his seminal paper in 1991. The goal of the paper is to provide a synthesis of exploration and exploitation based on the two areas of literature.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is conceptual and no empirical data have been used.
Findings
The study advances current understanding of exploration and exploitation by building a new model for organizational ambidexterity that takes into account multiple levels of learning, perspectives from absorptive capacity and inter-organizational learning.
Originality/value
The study’s novelty lies in the creation and discussion of a synthesis of exploration and exploitation stemming from organizational ambidexterity and organizational learning.
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Xiang Yu, Yuichi Washida and Masato Sasaki
This study aims to examine direct effects of qualified team gatekeepers on absorptive capacity (AC), and the mediating roles of combinative capabilities – knowledge integration…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to examine direct effects of qualified team gatekeepers on absorptive capacity (AC), and the mediating roles of combinative capabilities – knowledge integration capability (KIC) and interteam coordination.
Design/methodology/approach
A social networking analysis was used to analyze a unique data set collected from all members of 32 Japanese research and development (R&D) teams to identify key individuals who perform daily gatekeeping functions. This study analyzed the data through partial least squares structural equation modeling with higher-order latent variables. Finally, cross-validation tests were used with holdout samples to test the model’s predictive validity.
Findings
Qualified gatekeepers directly contribute to teams’ realized AC but not to their potential AC. Furthermore, qualified gatekeepers can improve their teams’ capability to absorb and exploit external knowledge by facilitating their capability to consolidate knowledge, that is, its KIC and interteam coordination.
Originality/value
Unlike prior research that asks top managers to identify team gatekeepers, this study used social network analysis to identify these vital individuals. This study provides a new framework indicating how qualified gatekeepers impact the AC of R&D teams through the examination of both the direct and indirect paths of gatekeeping abilities, two combinative capabilities as mediators and team AC.
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Flavia Frate and Diogenes Bido
This study aims to evaluate the effect of diversity of knowledge and intrinsic motivation on individual absorptive capacity, its effect on innovative behavior at work, as well as…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to evaluate the effect of diversity of knowledge and intrinsic motivation on individual absorptive capacity, its effect on innovative behavior at work, as well as the moderating effect of autonomy at work.
Design/methodology/approach
Data collection was carried out at the Companhia do Metropolitano de São Paulo – Metrô – obtaining 192 valid questionnaires, which were analyzed using descriptive statistics and structural equation modeling with partial least squares estimation.
Findings
Intrinsic motivation and diversity of prior knowledge have a direct effect on individual absorptive capacity (IAC) and an indirect effect on innovative work behavior (IWB). The relationship between IAC and IWB is strengthened as work autonomy increases (moderating effect).
Research limitations/implications
The results are not generalizable as this is a nonprobabilistic sample with respondents from the public sector who have job stability.
Practical implications
To encourage innovative behavior at work, the organization can implement practices that promote autonomy at work, and consider personal experiences that are not directly related to work during the selection and hiring process.
Social implications
By valuing life experience and autonomy at work and promoting innovative behavior at work, a working environment in which people feel good must be created.
Originality/value
The main highlights are the operationalization of the diversity of prior knowledge as a three-dimensional construct that promotes IAC, in addition to the moderating effect of autonomy at work.
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