A New Approach to Measure Absorptive Capacity and Appropriability: a Case of Study in Emerging Markets

Abstract

Absorptive capacity (AC) and appropriability (KA) are crucial elements in generating competitive advantages and improving innovation performance in different countries and organizations. Moreover, the relationship between AC and KA has not been sufficiently studied, and there is still not a clear understanding of the impact they have on in the generation of rents and value. This research proposes a methodology to analyze AC and KA at a country level using the scientific capabilities of a country as base. We identified the Colombian scientific literature SKL (1680 record) from the Patents Lens database, which have been cited at least once or more per patent (3066 records), and we identified the papers that were cited by this SKL (50,697) in order identify the flows between forward citations (FC) and backward citations (BC) at a country level. We associated BC to the AC acquisition stage, SKL to assimilation, and FC to transformation and exploitation AC phases. The patents were also associated with KA. In addition, we focused on the KA process, analyzing the organizations involved in the SKL and KA process by studying when KA was done by local organizations, by international organizations in the SKL development, or when knowledge was leaked (KS). Finally, we identified when the SKL organization was the corresponding author to analyze whether KA changes in these situations. Our main conclusion was that KA and the last stages of AC of native scientific development rarely happen in Colombia. The primary outcome of this absorption is a KS.