“…The potential absorptive capability (PAC) refers to the ability of a company to identify, acquire, and import the most relevant external knowledge (Lane & Lubatkin, 1998;Liao et al, 2003;Rodríguez et al, 2017;Zahra & George, 2002), and the ability to assimilate, interpret, understand, and process it (Camisón & Forés, 2010;Szulanski, 1996;Zahra & George, 2002). The PAC allows the company to connect with the environment and continuously renew its knowledge base (Volberda et al, 2010).…”