Abstract:
Knowledge Absorptive Capacity (ACAP), as presented by Cohen & Levinthal (1990) is a new perspective on learning and innovation. Much of the work on ACAP has focused on groups and on integration within organisations (Maaninen-Olson, Wismen and Carlsson, 2008) or between organisational dyads (Grant and Baden-Fuller, 2004). However, there is still a gap on the study of the absorption of knowledge from the broader environment and its integration into and across organisational processes (Kraaijenbrink and Wijnhoen, 2008). There is also gap in identifying how knowledge absorption, translation and integration practices occur in smaller organisations with flexible, informal and overlapping boundaries on an everyday basis and on identifying the ways in which transformed knowledge is disseminated back into the environment and the communities companies engage with and influences adaptation in the environment. The main aim of this research is to fill this recognized theoretical, methodological and empirical gap (Kraaijenbrink and Wijnhoen, 2008) and to develop a theoretical framework for ACAP development in context of small firms. This seminar presents the results of a pilot study that has been carried out in a community of small firms in the insurance industry in Iran, following a qualitative inductive approach.
Venue: Regent Court, level 2, room 204.
