| In many industries, the increasing dynamism of the competitive landscape requires firms to respond flexibly and rapidly (Grant, 1996; Volberda, 1998). Even industries that were supposed to be stable, like the financial services, publishing and energy sector, are confronted with changing conditions and an increasing turbulence. These developments have entailed a renewed interest in what has now described as the resource-based view of the firm. The central tenet is that competitive advantage can be gained through the way in which firms configure and manage their internal resources. In fact, the increasing focus on intangible resources has led to an extension of the resource-based view, the knowledge-based view of the firm. In this perspective, knowledge is the most strategically important of a firm's resources (Grant, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992). Moreover, from its distinctive characteristic that it underpins the development of internal competences, knowledge and its contributive nature to the competitive advantage of firms has become the central theme which currently finds expression in various literatures. These range from the management of (technological) innovation and the stress on firm-specific and cumulative nature of knowledge within firms (Teece et al., 1997) to the learning organization (Senge, 1990) and the management of knowledge assets (Nonaka, 1994; Hedlund, 1994). Recognizing the significance of knowledge and accessing and exploiting it within the firm are, however, different projects. It is not the knowledge itself, but the integration of it, which provides a basis for sustainable advantage (Grant, 1996; Kogut and Zander, 1992). Therefore, during this research project, emphasis is made upon the integration of knowledge, which is the essence of organizational capability; the mechanism by which knowledge is absorbed, transferred and accumulated into new knowledge stocks. In other words, from the absorption of external knowledge, firms recombine their existing knowledge through internal and external learning, and transfers this knowledge as products and services into the marketplace. Although the absorptive capacity of firms is described extensively (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Van den Bosch et al., 1999), identifying and measuring the absorptive capacity seemed to be complex and difficult. To capture the construct of organizational knowledge, this research project addresses the notion of absorptive capacity from a management perspective and explores its organizational determinants. Besides the conceptualization of knowledge absorption, it will contribute to the development of a definite measurement of knowledge absorption and the managerial implications of knowledge integration. |
