Linking Dynamic Absorptive Capacity and Service Innovation for Born Global Service Firms: An Organization Innovation Lens Perspective

Grounded in the dynamic capabilities approach and organizational sub-system view on internationalization, this quantitative study develops and empirically tests a model of international market performance of born global service firms. While several scholars highlighted innovativeness as a driver of competitiveness for born global firms, the capacities underlying the born global firm's innovativeness have received limited scholarly attention, specifically, dynamic absorptive capacities (exploratory, transformative, and exploitative learning capacities). The uniqueness of this paper posits that dynamic absorptive capacities in a born global service firm have contributed to innovation and resulted in international market outcomes. The data was collected using the survey method from born global service firms and was analyzed using structured equation modeling. The findings of this study reveal that service innovation and business strategy are critical drivers of international performance for born global service firms. The paper contributes to the literature on the significance of absorptive capacity in born global service firms by identifying those dynamic absorptive capacities that operate in a composite set of relationships with other capabilities and significantly contribute to their innovation, impacting their internationalization outcomes. This study also supplements the theoretical and practical implications derived from the key findings of this study and provides future research directions.     

Uncovering the factors behind new ventures’ international performance: Capabilities,alertness and technological turbulence

This research is based on the perception that the explanation of International New Ventures' (INVs) performance demands a process view, going deeper than the standard approach, in empirical papers, of testing a direct relationship between company-level antecedents and performance. A three-tier model was developed to investigate the process leading to INVs international performance, emphasizing the role of entrepreneurial alertness. Based on the dynamic capabilities framework, entrepreneurial alertness was envisaged as the mediating element between firms' capabilities and their international performance. Empirical research confirmed the hypothesized model. Firms' capabilities (entrepreneurial orientation, foreign market knowledge, and absorptive capacity) significantly influence the level of entrepreneurial alertness, which impacts on the levels of self-reported satisfaction with the company's international performance. The paper makes four contributions to International Entrepreneurship literature. First, it highlights the key role played by entrepreneurial alertness in explaining INVs' international performance. This is convergent with the dynamic capabilities view on firms' ability to sense and seize specific international business opportunities. Second, this study considers entrepreneurial alertness as a capability that is not limited to the entrepreneur, but it is an organizational capability. Third, it shows that entrepreneurial alertness does not exist in the vacuum, is based on a set of base capabilities, namely entrepreneurial orientation, foreign market knowledge, and absorptive capacity, that simultaneously leverage the INVs to sense possible opportunities and constrain the focus of opportunities to international markets, as a key element to foster INVs' higher performance. Fourth, it underlines the role of technological turbulence as a moderator of the relationship between entrepreneurial alertness and INVs' international performance.     

Enriching Absorptive Capacity through Social Interaction

Absorptive capacity is frequently highlighted as a key determinant of knowledge transfer within multinational enterprises. But how individual behaviour translates into absorptive capacity at the subsidiary level, and how this is contingent on subsidiaries' social context, remains under‐addressed. This not only limits our understanding of the relationship between individual‐ and organizational‐level absorptive capacity, but also hampers further research on potentially relevant managerial and organizational antecedents, and limits the implications we can draw for practitioners who seek to increase their organization's capacity to put new knowledge to use. To address this shortcoming we conduct an in‐depth comparative case study of a headquarters‐initiated knowledge transfer at two subsidiaries of the same multinational enterprise. The findings demonstrate that social interaction is a prerequisite for subsidiary absorptive capacity as it enables employees to participate in the transformation of new knowledge to the local context and the development of local applications. The findings also illustrate how organizational conditions at the subsidiary level can impact subsidiary absorptive capacity by enabling or constraining local interaction patterns. These insights contribute to the absorptive capacity literature by demonstrating the scale and scope of social interaction as a key link between individual‐ and organizational‐level absorptive capacity.     

Casting a Wide Net for Innovation: Mediating Effect of R&D Human and Social Capital to Unlock the Value from Alliance Portfolio Diversity

This paper examines the performance effects associated with different alliance portfolio configurations in terms of geographical location and partner type. Based on these distinctions, the authors hypothesize that more diverse alliance portfolios enable firms to gain and exploit innovation opportunities. Additionally, the mediating effects of R&D human and social capital on the R&D alliance portfolio diversity–innovation performance relationship are explored. The authors reason that the absorptive capacity of R&D intellectual capital determines a firm's potential gains from highly diverse alliance portfolios. From panel data of manufacturing firms in Spain for the period 2008–2013, the results confirm the inverted U‐shaped relationship between alliance portfolio diversity and firm innovation performance, implying that both insufficient and excessive alliance portfolio diversity may be detrimental to firm innovativeness. Additionally, R&D human and social capital partially mediates the R&D alliance diversity–innovation performance relationship, emphasizing the importance of internal capabilities to leverage the benefits of highly diverse alliance portfolios. These findings add a dynamic dimension to the conceptualization of alliance portfolios and how firms create value by balancing explorative and exploitative alliances.     

Unveiling the black box of IJV innovativeness: The role of explicit and tacit knowledge transfer

This paper explores the relationships between the tacit knowledge, explicit knowledge, and innovativeness of International Joint Ventures (IJVs) based on knowledge-based and learning theories. In the context of IJVs, the relationship between knowledge (explicit and tacit) transfer and innovativeness is still complicated by many challenges. We conducted a survey of 199 IJVs in South Korea. A structural equation model was used to test hypothesized linkages. Our results confirm that explicit knowledge transfer is positively associated with innovativeness. The explicit knowledge transferred from the foreign parent to the IJV has a stronger impact on innovativeness than tacit knowledge does. Additionally, tacit knowledge proved to not exhibit a direct impact on the innovativeness of IJVs. The results provide strong support for the mediating role of explicit knowledge in the relationship between tacit knowledge transfer and an IJV's innovativeness. Finally, the strength of the relationship between only explicit knowledge transferred from a parent firm and an IJV's innovativeness increases with international work experience.     

External knowledge search,absorptive capacity and radical innovation in high-technology firms

Open innovation and absorptive capacity are two concepts based on the idea that companies can leverage the knowledge generated externally to improve their innovation performance. The aim of this paper is to analyse the joint effect of open innovation and absorptive capacity on a firm's radical innovation. Open innovation is expressed in terms of external search breadth and depth strategies and absorptive capacity is described by distinguishing between potential and realized absorptive capacity. In order to test our hypotheses, we carried out empirical research in firms operating in high-technology industries. The results indicate that internal routines and processes for absorbing external knowledge help explain radical innovation as they show a significant effect of potential and realized absorptive capacity. Also, there is a moderating effect of absorptive capacity on open innovation. Specifically, potential absorptive capacity exerts a positive effect on the relationship between external search breadth and depth and radical innovation. Realized absorptive capacity moderates the influence of external search breadth. These findings confirm the complementary nature of absorptive capacity and open innovation search strategies on radical innovation.     

International Digital Competence

This article evaluates which specific capabilities of a firm enable its internationalization process, with an emphasis on companies with exclusively digital products. The results provide an opportunity to examine the strength of earlier findings in International Entrepreneurship (IE) research, which has largely addressed high-tech ventures that export physical products. We reveal a set of intangible capabilities that are especially relevant to digital companies and their internationalization process, without foreign direct investment (FDI) or with limited outward assets characterized by non-equity entry modes. Using an inductive, multiple-case study methodology, we develop a new construct that we term ‘international digital competence’ (IDC). IDC consists of four capabilities critical to these companies: cross-cultural programming skills, global virtual networks, cross-border digital monetizing adaptability, and international business model reconfiguration. The possession of IDC enables digital companies to expand internationally through an online presence. Therefore, we propose that international online expansion can increase the likelihood of a digital company performing outward assets via non-equity entry modes. We also conceived that the digital company's strategy to achieve non-equity investments is moderated by its entrepreneur's international orientation.     

Knowledge infrastructure capability,absorptive capacity and inbound open innovation: evidence from SMEs in France

Abstract

Inbound open innovation (IOI) has become a potentially valuable means of gaining competitive advantage and enhancing organizational performance. This article explores how knowledge infrastructure capability (KIC) affects IOI through the moderating role of absorptive capacity. This research conceptualizes and develops three dimensions of KIC (technological, structural and cultural), and tests the relationships between KIC, absorptive capacity and IOI. Data for the study were collected from 125 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) based in France, and the relationships proposed in the framework were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicate that higher levels of KIC can lead to enhanced absorptive capacity and improved IOI. That is, KIC can have a direct, positive impact on absorptive capacity and IOI. Moreover, absorptive capacity partially mediates the linkage between KIC and IOI. The article contributes to the conceptualization of the impact of KIC on IOI, by emphasizing a firm’s absorptive capacity. It offers a validated instrument to measure KIC, and provides an empirical evidence of the impact of KIC on absorptive capacity and IOI. This article also extends the extant literature by focusing on KIC and absorptive capacity simultaneously in a model to understand the notion of IOI in the SMEs based in France. This study offers useful guidance for measuring and implementing KIC in a SME context and encourages further research in this area.     

Relative capacity: Retaining knowledge outside a firm's boundaries

Besides internalizing external knowledge, companies may maintain knowledge in interfirm relationships over time. Thus, interorganizational relations may be regarded as an extended knowledge base to which a firm has privileged access. We merge research into knowledge management, absorptive capacity, learning, and dynamic capabilities to analyze knowledge retention outside a firm's boundaries. Prior research into knowledge management has focused on internally storing knowledge, whereas research into knowledge transactions has primarily studied the internalization of external knowledge. The need to dynamically manage knowledge in interfirm relations over time – without necessarily internalizing this knowledge – has been relatively neglected. Therefore, we develop the foundations of the dynamic capability-based concept of relative capacity as a complement to absorptive capacity and transformative capacity in external knowledge retention. Relative capacity contributes to explaining interfirm differences in knowledge strategies, alliance strategies, organizational boundaries, open innovation, and performance. To guide further research, propositions are advanced regarding the antecedents and consequences of relative capacity.     

Organizational learning in SMEs’ internationalization: A moderated mediating effect of absorptive capacity

We examine both mediation and moderation effects on the direct relationship between internationalization speed and firm performance in the context of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Building on prior studies that focus either on the direct speed–performance linkage or the moderating role played by knowledge, we suggest that an important source of performance variations is organizational learning. Grounded in the organizational learning perspective, we argue that firm strategies regarding speed and earliness of internationalization provide the SMEs with opportunities to develop their absorptive capacity, and thus enhance their performance. Using survey data from 343 SMEs in Australia and New Zealand, our empirical results suggest that absorptive capacity is associated with internationalization speed in a reversed U-shape relationship and that in turn absorptive capacity mediates the direct speed–performance relationship. Moreover, this mediating effect is moderated by earliness of internationalization. By demonstrating the moderated mediating effect of absorptive capacity as a novel mechanism to achieving superior performance, we enhance the understanding of how firms succeed internationally.     

An Examination of the Relationship Between Absorptive Capacity and Organizational Learning,and a Proposed Integration

Since its inception, the concept of absorptive capacity has been closely linked with notions of organizational learning. Yet the precise nature of the relationship between these two concepts has never been established. This relationship is examined in a variety of ways, and it is suggested that the literature on these two concepts shares a conceptual affinity which needs to be delineated. It is suggested that absorptive capacity (a dynamic capability) is a concrete example of organizational learning that concerns an organization's relationship with new external knowledge. Using the 4I Model for organizational learning ( Crossan, M.M., Lane, H.W. and White, R.E. (1999 ). An organizational learning framework: from intuition to institution. Academy of Management Review, 24, 522–537) and Zahra and George's conceptualization of absorptive capacity ( Zahra, S.A. and George, G. (2002 ). Absorptive capacity: a review, reconceptualization, and extension. Academy of Management Review, 27, 185–203), this paper proposes an integration of the two concepts.     

Drivers and Performance Outcomes of Innovativeness: An Empirical Study

The issue of innovativeness within organizations has attracted considerable attention in the literature. However, limited knowledge exists about the drivers of and their simultaneous effects on innovativeness and the role of innovativeness in enhancing performance. We adopt the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm and insights from the literature on capabilities to investigate specific capability types serving as antecedents to innovativeness and to examine its performance outcomes. From a sample of 218 Greek manufacturers, the results indicate that managerial, entrepreneurial and technical capabilities facilitate the establishment of innovativeness, which in turn enhances business performance. The study lends support to prior research that highlights the importance of innovativeness in enhancing organizational performance and sharpens understanding of the drivers of innovativeness and the way they collectively operate through innovativeness to boost performance. The study further provides new insights into the role of innovativeness from the perspective of the RBV, while highlighting certain firm capabilities that might both enable and impede competitive advantage and superior performance creation. As such, this study contributes to the effective management of the innovativeness process within organizations.     

答非所问与市场反应:基于业绩说明会的研究

对上市公司业绩说明会中投资者与管理层问答互动中管理层答非所问的现象进行了研究.本文以中小板和创业板上市公司召开的业绩说明会作为研究样本,利用文本分析方法对业绩说明会中管理层在回答投资者提问时答非所问的程度进行度量,进而实证分析了管理层的答非所问与市场反应和公司未来业绩表现之间的可能关联.结果发现:在控制其它因素之后,管理层的答非所问与市场反应之间呈现显著的负相关关系,即公司管理层的答非所问程度越高,随后公司股票的市场表现则就会越差,并且对于那些低分析师关注的公司尤为明显;而在公司未来业绩表现方面,管理层答非所问的程度越高,则公司未来的业绩表现则会越差.     

Relationship between Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management: An Empirical Investigation

Two important streams of the literature have examined intellectual capital (IC) and knowledge management (KM). Surprisingly, they have developed in parallel, without any empirical research on the relationship between them. This article empirically examines how IC and KM affect each other, and also investigates their consequences, viewing three intermediate consequences (dynamic capabilities, efficiency, and innovativeness) to mediate their effects on firm performance. In addition, this article examines the effects of the organization's culture on IC and KM. To address these issues, a comprehensive model is developed and tested using a combination of survey and secondary data of 533 companies in Taiwan. The results support the theoretical model. Major findings include the following: IC affects KM and dynamic capabilities; KM facilitates innovation but not dynamic capabilities or IC; a learning culture facilitates IC and innovation but not KM; firm performance depends on efficiency and innovation, but not directly on dynamic capabilities; and efficiency does not depend on any of the other constructs in the study. The article's implications for research and practice are examined.     

Institutional support and firms’ entrepreneurial orientation in emerging economies

In recent years, many governments in emerging economies have used macro-level institutional support to boost entrepreneurship, but the actual impact of institutional support on firms’ entrepreneurial orientation (EO) remains unclear. To provide a holistic understanding of this impact, we examine the relationship between institutional support and three specific dimensions of EO—proactiveness, innovativeness, and risk-taking—and we explore how these relationships are contingent on firm ownership and the industry life cycle. A two-study, mixed-methods empirical design confirms our hypotheses. Specifically, Study 1 surveys 303 Chinese firms and finds that institutional support has a decreasingly positive relationship with proactiveness, an increasingly positive relationship with innovativeness, and a positive linear relationship with risk-taking; each of these three relationships is weaker for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) than for non-SOEs and for firms in fast-growing industries than for firms in slow-growing industries. Study 2 conducts a scenario-based experiment using6 133 MBA students, and its results again support the main effects hypotheses.     

Organizational innovativeness: Exploring the relationship between organizational determinants of innovation, types of innovations, and measures of organizational performance

This research study examines the relationships between innovativeness of firms, their organizational characteristics, and organizational performance. Previous studies that have examined these relationships have yielded conflicting results. A fundamental assumption of this research is that these conflicting results may be due to a narrow definition of the construct of innovativeness. This research demonstrates that by using a multidimensional measure of innovativeness, the reasons for the conflicting findings of past research becomes evident. The results of this study show that substantive relationships do exist between organizational factors, organizational innovativeness, and organizational performance. These relationships, however, are complex, and can only be detected if innovativeness is measured as a multidimensional construct. Each of the organizational factors examined in this study showed significantly different effects on each dimension of two types of organizational innovativeness — technical and administrative innovativeness. Further, the results show that innovativeness does improve organizational performance. However, each dimension of the two types of innovativeness affects different aspects of organizational performance.     

Antecedents of Innovativeness in Technology‐Based Services (TBS): Peering into the Black Box of Entrepreneurial Orientation

Innovativeness is the organization's capability for developing and introducing innovations. We argue that new combinations and recombinations of prior and new knowledge (by way of creating, assembling, and transforming knowledge) result in innovativeness in an organization. We further assert that a knowledge‐based focus on innovativeness is particularly important for firms that are technology‐based. The majority of studies focusing on innovativeness are in the entrepreneurship arena, and a large number of studies consider innovativeness as one of three dimensions of the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) construct, the other two dimensions being proactiveness and risk‐taking. However, recent research has suggested peering into the black box of EO by disaggregating the EO construct and examining the interrelationships among its three components. Hence, using the knowledge‐based view and drawing from multiple disciplines, our study conceptualizes innovativeness as a criterion variable and investigates the antecedent role of proactiveness and risk‐taking propensity on innovativeness in the context of technology‐based services (TBS). We hypothesize that both proactiveness and risk‐taking propensity exhibit a curvilinear relationship with innovativeness and introduce organizational structure formality as a moderator to further explicate these relationships. Our results show that proactiveness has a curvilinear (inverted U relationship) with innovativeness, and that this relationship is attenuated by organizational structure formality. Additional analysis indicates that in TBS firms, risk‐taking propensity has a positive linear relationship with innovativeness, and this relationship is accentuated by organizational structure formality. Finally, we discuss important conceptual and practical implications of our study and provide suggestions for future research.     

A coevolutionary theory of the multinational firm

We examine the multinational firm from the lens of coevolutionary theory. Coevolutionary theory encompasses both macrocoevolution with the external (local) environment and microcoevolution within the internal environment, i.e. among the MNC's parts (subsidiaries) and the whole, and the relations between the two. In making our argument, we distinguish the coevolutionary process (what happens) from coevolutionary capabilities (what is manageable and how), and then resort to the specific motors of causal ambiguity and absorptive capacity to link the two together. In this context, we argue more specifically that coevolution at different levels tends to occur at different speeds. The speed differential creates what we term a dis-synchronization effect in the coevolution of the MNC, which potentially impacts firm performance. In making our argument, we also show how a coevolutionary lens sheds novel light on the functioning of the MNC as an internal knowledge sub-economy and the advantage of hierarchies over markets in this regard. Constructively managing the tension between the macro and micro aspects of coevolution due to respective differences in coevolutionary pressures has direct implications for competitive advantage and is a critical challenge faced by managers.     

企业知识吸收能力与绩效的关系研究

在资源基础理论的基础上,通过对我国不同行业近200家企业的问卷调研,运用实证分析剖析企业知识吸收能力,揭示了知识转化和创新能力与绩效之间的关系,认为在探讨企业的知识吸收能力上,应该重视企业内部支持与外部支持的影响作用,并阐明在知识吸收能力中,知识转化能力会在很大程度上影响企业的绩效水平,而其知识创新能力的影响不明显。