Knowing, Power and Materiality: A Critical Review and Reconceptualization of Absorptive Capacity

Most studies on absorptive capacity (AC) are based on assumptions that are characteristic of viewing knowledge from an epistemology of possession (knowledge is possessed by individuals and is transferrable). However, the literature on managing knowledge (or better knowledge work) acknowledges also an epistemology of practice (knowledge is unpredictable and dynamic and constituted in and through practice). Moreover, the literature on AC is relatively silent on the relationship between knowledge and power. In this paper, the authors argue that the AC construct should be interpreted in light of the possession and the practice perspectives of knowledge and power. The analysis includes a systematic literature review of AC that supports the authors' claims and, based on this, they suggest an interpretation of the construct that takes into account knowledge–power relationships. This review and theorizing contribute to a richer and processual view of AC.

[1]  J. Dewey.  The child and the curriculum , 1902 .

[2]  John Dewey,et al.  The School as Social Center , 1902 .

[3]  Edward Carpenter,et al.  The Art Of Creation , 1907 .

[4]  J. Dewey.  Logic, the theory of inquiry , 1938 .

[5]  M. Weber.  From Max Weber: Essays in sociology , 1946 .

[6]  E. Hilgard,et al.  Theories of Learning , 1981 .

[7]  Floyd Hunter,et al.  Community Power Structure , 1954 .

[8]  R. Emerson.  Power-Dependence Relations , 1962, Power in Modern Societies.

[9]  P. Bachrach,et al.  Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework , 1963, American Political Science Review.

[10]  K. Weick.  The social psychology of organizing , 1969 .

[11]  Pierre Bourdieu,et al.  Outline of a Theory of Practice , 2020, On Violence.

[12]  Mark S. Granovetter.  The Strength of Weak Ties , 1973, American Journal of Sociology.

[13]  J. Pfeffer,et al.  Organizational Decision Making as a Political Process: The Case of a UniversityBudget. , 1974 .

[14]  P. L. Adams.  THE ORIGINS OF INTELLIGENCE IN CHILDREN , 1976 .

[15]  R. D'amico.  Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison , 1978, Telos.

[16]  M. Foucault,et al.  Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. , 1978 .

[17]  M. Foucault,et al.  Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977 , 1980 .

[18]  M. Foucault.  The Subject and Power , 1982, Critical Inquiry.

[19]  E. Shils.  The Constitution Of Society , 1982 .

[20]  A. Giddens.  The Constitution of Society , 1985 .

[21]  M. Callon.  Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay , 1984 .

[22]  B. Latour,et al.  Power, Action and Belief. A New Sociology of Knowledge? , 1986 .

[23]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  Innovation and Learning: The Two Faces of R&D , 1989 .

[24]  Stewart Clegg,et al.  Radical Revisions: Power, Discipline and Organizations , 1989 .

[25]  Susan Leigh Star,et al.  Institutional Ecology, `Translations' and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 1907-39 , 1989 .

[26]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY: A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING AND INNOVATION , 1990 .

[27]  J. Brown,et al.  Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation , 1991 .

[28]  H. Simon.  Bounded Rationality and Organizational Learning , 1991 .

[29]  Etienne Wenger,et al.  Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation , 1991 .

[30]  John Law,et al.  Notes on the theory of the actor-network: Ordering, strategy, and heterogeneity , 1992 .

[31]  Gavriel Salomon,et al.  T RANSFER OF LEARNING , 1992 .

[32]  Paul M. B. Vitányi,et al.  Theories of learning , 2007 .

[33]  Umed Raj Nahar.  Community power structure , 1993 .

[34]  Barbara Townley,et al.  FOUCAULT, POWER/KNOWLEDGE, AND ITS RELEVANCE FOR HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT , 1993 .

[35]  A. Pickering.  The Mangle of Practice: Agency and Emergence in the Sociology of Science , 1993, American Journal of Sociology.

[36]  I. Nonaka.  A Dynamic Theory of Organizational Knowledge Creation , 1994 .

[37]  Daniel A. Levinthal,et al.  Fortune favors the prepared firm , 1994 .

[38]  Ramkrishnan V. Tenkasi,et al.  P ERSPECTIVE M AKING AND P ERSPECTIVE T AKING IN C OMMUNITIES OF K NOWING , 2000 .

[39]  J. Spender.  Organizational knowledge, learning and memory: three concepts in search of a theory , 1996 .

[40]  D. Mowery,et al.  Strategic alliances and interfirm knowledge transfer , 1996 .

[41]  M. Tushman,et al.  Ambidextrous Organizations: Managing Evolutionary and Revolutionary Change , 1996 .

[42]  Jeffrey H. Dyer,et al.  The Relational View: Cooperative Strategy and Sources of Interorganizational Competitive Advantage , 1998 .

[43]  Peter J. Lane,et al.  Relative absorptive capacity and interorganizational learning , 1998 .

[44]  K. K. Cetina.  German Translation of Sociality with Objects. Social Relations in Postsocial Knowledge Societies , 1998 .

[45]  I. Nonaka,et al.  The Concept of “Ba”: Building a Foundation for Knowledge Creation , 1998 .

[46]  S. Albers,et al.  Crisis Construction and Organizational Learning: Capability Building in Catching-Up at Hyundai Motor , 1998 .

[47]  Henk W. Volberda,et al.  Co-evolution of Firm Absorptive Capacity and Knowledge Environment: Organizational Forms and Combinative Capabilities , 1999 .

[48]  J. Brown,et al.  Bridging epistemologies: The generative dance between organizational knowledge and organizational knowing , 1999 .

[49]  Roderick E. White,et al.  An Organizational Learning Framework : From Intuition to Institution Author ( s ) : , 2007 .

[50]  S. Newell,et al.  Networks, Knowledge and Power: Decision Making, Politics and the Process of Innovation , 2000 .

[51]  S. Gherardi.  Practice-Based Theorizing on Learning and Knowing in Organizations , 2000 .

[52]  Marjorie A. Lyles,et al.  Absorptive capacity, learning, and performance in international joint ventures , 2001 .

[53]  Wenpin Tsai.  Knowledge Transfer in Intraorganizational Networks: Effects of Network Position and Absorptive Capacity on Business Unit Innovation and Performance , 2001 .

[54]  Jacky Swan,et al.  Knowledge management in action: integrating knowledge across communities , 2001, Proceedings of the 34th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[55]  John Scott.  Power: Critical Concepts , 2001 .

[56]  Justin J. P. Jansen.  Ambidextrous Organizations. A Multiple-Level Study of Absorptive Capacity, Exploratory and Exploitative Innovation and Performance , 2001 .

[57]  Paul R. Carlile,et al.  A Pragmatic View of Knowledge and Boundaries: Boundary Objects in New Product Development , 2002, Organ. Sci..

[58]  S. Zahra,et al.  Absorptive Capacity: A Review, Reconceptualization, and Extension , 2002 .

[59]  S. Newell,et al.  Social practices and the management of knowledge in project environments , 2003 .

[60]  Robert Chia,et al.  From Knowledge-Creation to the Perfecting of Action: Tao, Basho and Pure Experience as the Ultimate Ground of Knowing , 2003 .

[61]  Attila Bruni,et al.  Shadowing softwares and clinical records: on the ethnography of non-humans , 2003 .

[62]  R. Hess.  Power in organizations. , 2003, Journal of nursing scholarship : an official publication of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.

[63]  Ray Reagans,et al.  Network Structure and Knowledge Transfer: The Effects of Cohesion and Range , 2003 .

[64]  Beth A. Bechky.  Sharing Meaning Across Occupational Communities: The Transformation of Understanding on a Production Floor , 2003, Organ. Sci..

[65]  N. Marshall,et al.  Maybe Bacon Had a Point: The Politics of Interpretation in Collective Sensemaking , 2004 .

[66]  Paul R. Carlile,et al.  Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge Across Boundaries , 2004, Organ. Sci..

[67]  Diane M. Strong,et al.  Enterprise systems, knowledge transfer and power users , 2004, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[68]  Joseph A Parker,et al.  The power of association. , 2005, GHA today.

[69]  Justin J. P. Jansen,et al.  Managing Potential and Realized Absorptive Capacity: How Do Organizational Antecedents Matter? , 2005 .

[70]  B. Latour.  Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory , 2005 .

[71]  Emmanuelle Vaast,et al.  The Emergence of Boundary Spanning Competence in Practice: Implications for Implementation and Use of Information Systems , 2005, MIS Q..

[72]  Jacky Swan,et al.  The politics of networked innovation , 2005 .

[73]  Attila Bruni,et al.  Shadowing Software and Clinical Records: On the Ethnography of Non-Humans and Heterogeneous Contexts , 2005 .

[74]  Marguerite Schneider,et al.  Phases of the Adoption of Innovation in Organizations: Effects of Environment, Organization and Top Managers , 2006 .

[75]  Balaji R. Koka,et al.  The Reification of Absorptive Capacity: A Critical Review and Rejuvenation of the Construct , 2006 .

[76]  Davide Nicolini,et al.  Organizational Knowledge: The Texture of Workplace Learning , 2006 .

[77]  Oswald Jones,et al.  Developing Absorptive Capacity in Mature Organizations , 2006 .

[78]  David Bawden,et al.  Complex Knowledge: Studies in Organizational Epistemology , 2007, J. Documentation.

[79]  G. Coenders,et al.  Innovation activities, use of appropriation instruments and absorptive capacity: Evidence from Spanish firms , 2007 .

[80]  J. Dewey,et al.  Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude , 2007 .

[81]  W. Orlikowski.  Sociomaterial Practices: Exploring Technology at Work , 2007 .

[82]  Hee-Dong Yang,et al.  Perceived absorptive capacity of individual users in performance of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) usage: The case for Korean firms , 2007, Inf. Manag..

[83]  Boris Durisin,et al.  Absorptive capacity: Valuing a reconceptualization , 2007 .

[84]  Jacky Swan,et al.  The object of knowledge: The role of objects in biomedical innovation , 2007 .

[85]  R. Dahl.  The concept of power , 2007 .

[86]  B. Kogut,et al.  Exploring internal stickiness : Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm , 2007 .

[87]  Peter Y. T. Sun,et al.  An Examination of the Relationship between Absorptive Capacity and Organizational Learning, and a Proposed Integration , 2008 .

[88]  Qing Xu,et al.  Determinants of ERP implementation knowledge transfer , 2008, Inf. Manag..

[89]  Gabrielle Durepos.  Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor‐Network‐Theory , 2008 .

[90]  M. Lynne Markus,et al.  A Foundation for the Study of IT Effects: A New Look at DeSanctis and Poole's Concepts of Structural Features and Spirit , 2008, J. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[91]  Susan V. Scott,et al.  10 Sociomateriality: Challenging the Separation of Technology, Work and Organization , 2008 .

[92]  Jason Ferdinand,et al.  Absorptive Capacity: A Process Perspective , 2008 .

[93]  N. Marshall.  Reflective Practice in Learning Networks: A Critical Pragmatist Perspective , 2008 .

[94]  Stewart Clegg,et al.  The SAGE Handbook of Power , 2009 .

[95]  Shaker A. Zahra,et al.  How do threshold firms sustain corporate entrepreneurship? The role of boards and absorptive capacity , 2009 .

[96]  Sue Newell,et al.  Introducing Knowledge Work: Processes, Purposes and Contexts , 2009 .

[97]  K. K. Cetina,et al.  Sociality with Objects Social Relations in , 2009 .

[98]  Z. Zhao,et al.  A multilevel perspective on knowledge transfer: evidence from the Chinese automotive industry , 2009 .

[99]  Marjorie A. Lyles,et al.  Absorbing the Concept of Absorptive Capacity: How to Realize Its Potential in the Organization Field , 2009 .

[100]  Russell Gersten,et al.  Evaluating the Collaborative Strategic Reading Intervention: An Overview of Randomized Controlled Trial Options. , 2009 .

[101]  Justus J. Randolph.  A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review. , 2009 .

[102]  C. Boedker.  Ostensive versus performative approaches for theorising accounting‐strategy research , 2010 .

[103]  W. Orlikowski.  The sociomateriality of organisational life: considering technology in management research , 2010 .

[104]  S. Newell,et al.  When Policy meets Practice: Colliding Logics and the Challenges of ‘Mode 2’ Initiatives in the Translation of Academic Knowledge , 2010 .

[105]  Davide Nicolini.  Medical Innovation as a Process of Translation: A Case from the Field of Telemedicine , 2010 .

[106]  Maiko Spiess.  Sorting Things Out - Classification and Its Consequences , 2010 .

[107]  B. Clarysse,et al.  Building absorptive capacity to organise inbound open innovation in traditional industries , 2010 .

[108]  Sue Newell,et al.  Understanding Project Survival in an ES Environment: A Sociomaterial Practice Perspective , 2010, J. Assoc. Inf. Syst..

[109]  Bart Clarysse,et al.  Building absorptive capacity to organise inbound open innovation in traditional industries , 2010 .

[110]  Henk W. Volberda,et al.  Absorbing the Concept of Absorptive Capacity: How to Realize Its Potential in the Organization Field , 2009 .

[111]  Davide Nicolini,et al.  Practice as the Site of Knowing: Insights from the Field of Telemedicine , 2011, Organ. Sci..

[112]  Jörgen Sandberg.  GRASPING THE LOGIC OF PRACTICE : THEORIZING THROUGH PRACTICAL RATIONALITY , 2011 .

[113]  Wanda J. Orlikowski,et al.  Theorizing Practice and Practicing Theory , 2011, Organ. Sci..

[114]  Helena Heizmann,et al.  Knowledge sharing in a dispersed network of HR practice: Zooming in on power/knowledge struggles , 2011 .

[115]  J. Anand,et al.  Unpacking absorptive capacity: A study of knowledge utilization from alliance portfolios , 2011 .

[116]  Arie Y. Lewin,et al.  Microfoundations of Internal and External Absorptive Capacity Routines , 2011, Organ. Sci..

[117]  Paul M. Leonardi,et al.  When Flexible Routines Meet Flexible Technologies: Affordance, Constraint, and the Imbrication of Human and Material Agencies , 2011, MIS Q..

[118]  Keld Laursen,et al.  Linking Customer Interaction and Innovation: The Mediating Role of New Organizational Practices , 2011, Organ. Sci..

[119]  Kalle Lyytinen,et al.  Organizing for Innovation in the Digitized World , 2012, Organ. Sci..

[120]  Silvia Gherardi,et al.  How to Conduct a Practice-based Study: Problems and Methods , 2013 .

[121]  Mike W. Peng,et al.  Expatriate Knowledge Transfer, Subsidiary Absorptive Capacity, and Subsidiary Performance , 2012 .

[122]  Robert D. Austin,et al.  Accidental Innovation: Supporting Valuable Unpredictability in the Creative Process , 2012, Organ. Sci..

[123]  Alain Pinsonneault,et al.  The dynamics of client–consultant relationships: exploring the interplay of power and knowledge , 2012, J. Inf. Technol..

[124]  Heiko Gebauer,et al.  Absorptive capacity, learning processes and combinative capabilities as determinants of strategic innovation , 2012 .

[125]  Deborah Dougherty,et al.  Digital Science and Knowledge Boundaries in Complex Innovation , 2012, Organ. Sci..

[126]  Michael Dinger,et al.  Absorptive Capacity and Information Systems Research: Review, Synthesis, and Directions for Future Research , 2012, MIS Q..

[127]  P. Leonardi.  Materiality, Sociomateriality, and Socio-Technical Systems: What Do These Terms Mean? How are They Related? Do We Need Them? , 2012 .

[128]  Sue Newell,et al.  Knowledge Risks in Organizational Networks: The Practice Perspective , 2012, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[129]  Jacky Swan,et al.  Understanding the Role of Objects in Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration , 2012, Organ. Sci..

[130]  Kevin C. Desouza,et al.  Knowledge risks in organizational networks: An exploratory framework , 2012, J. Strateg. Inf. Syst..

[131]  P. Leonardi,et al.  Materiality and Organizing: Social Interaction in a Technological World , 2013 .

[132]  Frans van den Bosch,et al.  Strategic Renewal Over Time: The Enabling Role of Potential Absorptive Capacity in Aligning Internal and External Rates of Change , 2013 .

[133]  Silvia Gherardi,et al.  How to Conduct a Practice-based Study: Problems and Methods , 2013 .

[134]  Timothy Rowe,et al.  The Power of Association. , 2015, Journal of obstetrics and gynaecology Canada : JOGC = Journal d'obstetrique et gynecologie du Canada : JOGC.