Enriching individual absorptive capacity
| Published date | 06 August 2018 |
| Pages | 1116-1132 |
| Date | 06 August 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-04-2017-0110 |
| Author | Amy Wei Tian,Christine Soo |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Enriching individual absorptive
capacity
Amy Wei Tian
Curtin Business School, Curtin University, Perth, Australia, and
Christine Soo
University of Western Australia Business School, University of Western Australia,
Perth, Australia
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to offer an understanding of the development and consequence of
absorptive capacity (AC) at the individual level of analysis. The authors assess how perception of
organizational commitment to learning and intrinsic motivationaffects individual potential AC, and employee
creativity and job performance as the key outcomes of individual AC. Furthermore, the authors examined
the dual role of realized AC as a mediator in the potential AC-creativity relationship, and a moderator on the
creativity-job performance relationship.
Design/methodology/approach –This paper draws from 125 paired supervisor-employee survey data,
where supervisors rated subordinates’creativity and job performance. Hierarchical regression was used to
test the proposed hypotheses.
Findings –The results confirm that both perception of organizational commitment to learning and intrinsic
motivation contribute to the development of individual potential AC (above and beyond extrinsic motivation).
Individual realized AC mediated the potential AC-creativity relationship. Employee creativity was positively
related to job performance.
Research limitations/implications –This study speaks directly to the question of how an organization
can encourage its employees to absorb new knowledge, and the benefits of employee learning activities on
their creativity and job performance.
Originality/value –This is one of the first studies to offer a more nuanced understanding of the
development and consequences of individual AC –a level of analysis has been lack of empirical studies.
It further point out how individual characteristic and perceptions can influence their learning capacity, and in
turn, their performance.
Keywords Quantitative, Creativity, Motivation, Absorptive capacity, Job performance, Organizational learning
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Absorptive capacity (AC hereafter) is conceptualized as a dynamic capability (Lewin et al.,
2011; Volberda et al., 2010) enabling a firm to acquire, process, apply and exploit external
knowledge (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990). Extending this dynamic nature further, Zahra and
George’s (2002) seminal paper distinguished AC as two separate but complementary
subsets of potential (knowledge acquisition and assimilation) and realized AC (knowledge
transformation and exploitation). Research has shown that AC contributes toward
organizational learning processes and outcomes, such as knowledge transfer (Minbaeva
et al., 2014), innovation and financialperformance (Soo et al., 2002; Volberda et al., 2010; Zahra
and George, 2002). Conceptually, although Cohen and Levinthal (1990, pp. 131-135) explicitly
argued that a firm’s AC has both individual and organizational antecedents, empirical AC
research has largely focused on aggregate collective-level relationships, such as country,
inter- and intra-organizational levels of analysis (e.g. Lane et al., 2006; Volberda et al., 2010).
To address the multilevel nature of AC,there has been a growing body of researchcalling for
an improved understanding of the micro-foundations of AC (Foss, 2011; Lane et al., 2006;
Lewin et al.,2011;Minbaevaet al., 2014; Volberda et al., 2010). For instance, Volberda et al.
(2010, p. 944) stated that “the understanding of AC as a dependent variable, absent
of a consideration of the level of individuals and their action, may be inherently incomplete.”
Personnel Review
Vol. 47 No. 5, 2018
pp. 1116-1132
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-04-2017-0110
Received 10 April 2017
Revised 21 September 2017
Accepted 10 February 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
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This is because a firm’sAC“depends on the individual absorptive capacities of the
organization’smembers”(Lane et al., 2006, p. 838). In more recent years, scholars have
examined the lin k between a firm’s AC and a numbe r of individual-level beh aviors or
characteristics, including organizational citizenship behavior (Hart et al., 2016), individual
learning orientation and behavior (Martinkenaite and Breunig, 2016; Yao and Chang, 2017),
social interaction (Hotho et al., 2012; Tortoriello, 2015), and leadership (Flatten et al., 2015).
Despite calls for more attention to the role of individual-level antecedents to AC, this
issue remains under-addressed (Hart et al., 2016). To date, only a few studies have
conceptualized and tested when and how individual-level antecedents could be linked with
firm AC (e.g. Flatten et al., 2015; Hotho et al., 2012; Yao and Chang, 2017). For example,
adapting the bottom-up approach, Yao and Chang (2017) found that two individual-level
characteristics, individual learning goal orientation and civic virtue, can contribute to the
development of firm potential and realized AC. While these studies have advanced our
understanding of how individual-level AC can contribute to firm AC, the development of AC
at the individual level remains unclear. This void is surprising, since scholars have long
argued that, in order to understand firm AC, one must necessarily examine the AC of the
employees in question (Jansen et al., 2005; Volberda et al., 2010; Zahra and George, 2002).
Thus in this study, following calls for more empirical studies on individual-level AC
(e.g. Volberda et al., 2010; Yao and Chang, 2017), and a better understanding of how it is
developed (e.g. Flatten et al., 2015; Soo et al., 2017), we explore the antecedents and
consequences of AC at the individual level.
The key objectives of this study are twofold. First, we respond to calls for a better
understanding of AC development at the individual level by examining two antecedents
(i.e. intrinsic motivation and perceived organizational commitment to learning) of individual
AC. Intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it is inherently
interesting or enjoyable (Ryan and Deci, 2000a), has been shown to be a key motivational
force that leads to learning, knowledge sharing and creativity (Reinholt et al., 2011).
Perceived organizational commitment to learning is defined as the degree to which an
organization values and promotes learning (Sinkula et al., 1997). Calantone et al. (2002,
p. 515) suggested that the more an organization values learning, the more likely it is that its
employees will be engaged in learning activities. While the concept of commitment to
learning has been typically studied at the organizational level (Calantone et al., 2002;
Kukenberger et al., 2015), we contend that, at the individual level, it is employees’perception
of organizational commitment to learning that has a close relationship with employees’
learning behaviors and outcomes. Taken together, we echo Minbaeva et al.’s (2012)
argument that individuals are heterogeneous: they differ in various aspects of motivation
and how they respond to external cues for learning and knowledge sharing –and that
these differences reflect their respective AC. Second, in addition to the antecedents of
individual-level AC, we also examine the outcomes of individual AC by examining its
influence on employees’creativity and job performance, because both represent important
sources of organizational innovation and competitive advantage (Gong et al., 2013;
Martinaityte and Sacramento, 2013; Zhou and Shalley, 2011). Furthermore, we examine the
dual role of realized AC as a mediator in the employee potential AC-creativity relationship,
and as a moderator on the creativity-job performance relationship.
In summary, while AC has been largely studied at the collective level as an independent
variable,it has, by definition, a strong foundationat the individual level (Cohen and Levinthal,
1990). As Lane et al. (2006) argued, a firm’s AC depends on the ACs of the organiz ation’s
members. Yet, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to understanding how AC is
developed at the individual level, and how individual AC can have a positive impact on
employees’creativity and job performance. Thus, drawing from the wealth of studies that
have looked at AC from the collective level (i.e. business unit and/or organizational level), in
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Enriching
individual
absorptive
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