Putting the cart (antecedents) before the horse (absorptive capacity): the role of competitive antecedents to the absorptive capacity innovation process

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this study is to theoretically and empirically advance a concept of competitive antecedents to absorptive capacity (AC) research and to explain their relationship to a firm’s innovative performance. A firm’s competitive antecedents involve a relative advantage in a firm’s ability to access external knowledge – (i.e. relative advantage in external knowledge flows) – and a relative advantage in appropriating these external knowledge flows (i.e. relative advantage in appropriability regime). Design/methodology/approach By drawing on network and market share explanations, hypotheses were developed in which a firm’s AC is argued to mediate the influence of these competitive antecedents on a firm’s innovations. In using linear and negative binomial estimation methods, a mediation analysis of the US biotechnology industry was conducted. Findings A firm’s competitive antecedents have a positive influence on a firm’s AC and that these influences indirectly impact a biotechnology firm’s product innovations. Originality/value While a firm’s innovation is widely attributed to its AC, this study’s concept of competitive antecedents shows that a firm’s competitive advantage lies upstream from its AC.

Connecting the unconnected: Analogies and the development of insight in the absorptive capacity process

“…A firm's history of technical achievements appears to have a positive influence on the firm's innovative performance. As a firm's ability to commercialize external information is influenced by the environment's ‘property right regime’ (Ng & Sanchez‐Aragon, 2021; Zahra & George, 2002), PRights was consistently positive and significant in all models. The Trend variable was negative and significant in all models, and thus, the inclusion of this variable to control for truncation problems was warranted.…”

“…This diversity was computed by a Herfindahl–Hirshman Index (Vasudeva & Anand, 2011). A firm's cumulative number of patents applications, Cum_Pat , was included to account for path dependent effects in the AC process and is measured by aggregating the cumulative number of patent applications filed by a firm over each sampling period (see also Ng et al, 2019; Ng & Sanchez‐Aragon, 2021; Schildt et al, 2012). AC research also finds that a firm's appropriation regime can influence a firm's AC (Chen & Chang, 2019; Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Ng & Sanchez‐Aragon, 2021; Todorova & Durisin, 2007; Zahra & George, 2002).…”

“…A firm's cumulative number of patents applications, Cum_Pat , was included to account for path dependent effects in the AC process and is measured by aggregating the cumulative number of patent applications filed by a firm over each sampling period (see also Ng et al, 2019; Ng & Sanchez‐Aragon, 2021; Schildt et al, 2012). AC research also finds that a firm's appropriation regime can influence a firm's AC (Chen & Chang, 2019; Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Ng & Sanchez‐Aragon, 2021; Todorova & Durisin, 2007; Zahra & George, 2002). This appropriation regime is measured by aggregating—for each sample period—the annual number of patent claims made by all firms, PRights , in the sample (Ng et al, 2019; Ng & Sanchez‐Aragon, 2021).…”

“…AC research also finds that a firm's appropriation regime can influence a firm's AC (Chen & Chang, 2019; Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Ng & Sanchez‐Aragon, 2021; Todorova & Durisin, 2007; Zahra & George, 2002). This appropriation regime is measured by aggregating—for each sample period—the annual number of patent claims made by all firms, PRights , in the sample (Ng et al, 2019; Ng & Sanchez‐Aragon, 2021). In addition, a time trend, Trend , was included because patent citation data is vulnerable to truncation problems (Hall et al, 2001).…”

In search of virtuous learning circles: absorptive capacity and its antecedents in the education sector

“…Recently, the AC concept has received major attention in the organizational context (Mariano and Walter, 2015; Ramachandran, 2018; Sadeghi et al , 2021; Wang and Han, 2011). AC is associated with several outcomes: innovation generally speaking (Wang and Han, 2011; Pangarso et al , 2020; Limaj and Bernroider, 2019; Adriansyah and Afiff, 2015; Leal-Rodríguez et al , 2014) and related concepts such as: innovative capability (Ávila, 2021), innovation performance (Wang and Han, 2011), open innovation (Lowik et al , 2017; Wang et al , 2017), co-innovation (Arias-Pérez et al , 2020), external orientations such as interpretation of dynamic marketplaces (Greenhill and Oppenheim, 2017), disaster immunity (Sadeghi et al , 2021), entrepreneurial orientation (García-Villaverde et al , 2018), value creation (Campos-Climent and Sanchis-Palacio, 2017) and finally, knowledge management, either considered as a whole (Gray, 2006; Valentim et al , 2016), or in its specific processes such as sharing and spreading knowledge within an organization (Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000), knowledge transfer (Tho, 2017), or creation (Mariano and Walter, 2015) and organizational unlearning (Ng and Sanchez-Aragon, 2021). In addition, AC has also been related to the achievement of an overall competitive advantage (Medase and Barasa, 2019; Zou et al , 2018).…”