Antecedents of absorptive capacity in knowledge-transfer projects: What affects the absorptive capacity of the recipient project team?

For many companies, planning and executing effective knowledge transfer with external organizations is becoming increasingly relevant. However, the complexity of such processes often results in high failure rates. By taking the perspective of the recipient organization in a knowledge-transfer project, this research aims to identify the antecedents of a recipient project team’s absorptive capacity.  Empirical evidence from the case of a multi-national  energy company transferring technological and organizational knowledge from its UK to its Swedish subsidiary is combined with findings from prior research in order to develop a set of research propositions

Design av ett decimeringsfilter med låg effektförbrukning Design of a decimation filter with low power consumption

Implementering av FIR filter kan göras på olika sätt. I detta examensarbete har två olika varianter beskrivits med hjälp av VHDL, syntetiserats, simulerats och sedan jämförts med avseende på effektförbrukning

Individual-level absorptive capacity: Unveiling the interplay between dispositions and work context

While extant literature conceptually recognizes individuals as an integral part of the process with which organizations absorb new knowledge, past research has paid limited attention to the antecedents of individual-level absorptive capacity. In this paper, we address this research gap. We build on the interactionist perspective and propose that individual-level absorptive capacity is shaped by the joint effects of individual employees’ dispositions (i.e., need for cognition and proactive personality) and their work context (i.e., time pressure and autonomy). Significantly, we also recognize the multidimensional nature of absorptive capacity, which suggests that individuals need different capabilities to learn and utilize new knowledge in their organizations. We test our predictions using a unique dataset from 646 employees working on knowledge-intensive tasks. Our results show that the joint effects of dispositional and contextual antecedents are not uniform across different dimensions of individual-level absorptive capacity

Individual and contextual determinants of innovation performance : A microfoundations perspective

Concurrent increase in the degree of competition and access to information makes it both a challenge and necessity for firms to develop their ability to sense, seize and exploit knowledge-based advantages. Since absorptive capacity reflects an organization's ability to extract innovative ideas from its environment, it plays a critical role in fostering intrapreneurship and innovative performance within existing firms. In this paper, we adopt micro-foundations perspective and study how goal orientations of employees affect their individual-level absorptive capacity, which would in turn shape collective innovative performance. Furthermore, we examine conditions under which individuals' absorptive capacities can efficiently aggregate and leads to increased collective innovation performance. We tested our theoretical model using an original dataset collected from 648 knowledge workers from 126 functional areas. Our analysis show that individuals' learning and prove orientation are important predictors of their absorptive capacity, and that individuals' aggregate absorptive capacity would lead to positive innovation outcomes especially when their activities are highly coordinated

What Fosters Individual-Level Absorptive Capacity in MNCs? : An Extended Motivation-Ability-Opportunity Framework

Absorptive capacity has been marked as one of the most important capabilities of Multinational Corporations for effective management of knowledge. To address calls for research on micro-level origins of the concept, this paper focuses on the determinants of individual-level absorptive capacity. We examine the extent to which individuals' capability to recognize, assimilate and exploit new knowledge from the environment is shaped by different forms of work motivation (i.e., intrinsic and extrinsic), overall ability, exposure to diverse country contexts and personal characteristics. Drawing on and extending the Motivation-Ability-Opportunity framework, we develop and test a set of hypotheses. Using a unique dataset collected from 648 individuals in a multinational corporation, we show that individuals' intrinsic motivation and overall ability are the key antecedents of absorptive capacity. In contrast, extrinsic motivation does not emerge as a significant predictor. We find that past international assignments to distant countries could be detrimental to individuals' absorptive capacity. However, our results suggest that for those individuals who are open to new experiences, assignments to distant countries become useful opportunity for absorptive capacity development. These findings contribute to existing literature by showing effects of alternative types of motivation and underscoring the importance of using selective assignment when considering exposure to diverse country context as a tool for employee capability development