A dynamic perspective on absorptive capacity: an empirical investigation

In spite of an increasing amount of research on absorptive capacity and its relationship with the innovative performance of a firm, more recently the theoretical debate has drawn attention to the micro-foundation of this construct as a promising perspective. According to this claim recent research has focused on processes and routines that make-up this capacity, but mostly from a static point of view. In order to analyse the dynamic nature of ACAP two unanswered questions should be addressed: how do ACAP processes interact to each other and how these processes are developed. Our paper contribute to a micro-foundation of absorptive capacity by a dynamic perspective. Through an inductive research based on a multiple case study we provide an empirical investigation on key processes and related organizational practices of external knowledge absorption and preliminary insights on their relationship and development