Abstract
The concept of organisational absorptive capacity is discussed in this paper through the perspective of business advisors servicing small businesses. Exploring the notion of absorptive capacity in an organisation requires the ability to assimilate and create new knowledge founded on embedded prior knowledge. A high level of absorptive capacity is generally accepted as important for businesses to assimilate and utilise new knowledge, in spite of this, the nature of absorptive capacity remains ambiguous. There is some consensus that absorptive capacity is a multi-dimensional construct, but the nature of those dimensions remains unclear. Adopting the premise that the most effective source of organisational knowledge creation are individuals within organisations, this paper investigates the absorptive capacity antecedents for individual business advisors to identify their propensity towards acquiring or assimilating particular types of knowledge. The identification of four dimensions of individual absorptive capacity for all knowledge workers provide a conceptual framework to evaluate mechanisms which influence organisational knowledge creation, knowledge absorption or knowledge utilisation. This perspective contributes to the development of a theoretical approach for interrogating the inclination of individuals, within organisations, towards specific types of knowledge.
Presenters
Alan LabasLecturer in Management, Federation Business School, Federation University Australia, Victoria, Australia
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Organizations as Knowledge Makers
KEYWORDS
Knowledge Creation, Qualitative Analysis, Business Advisors, Knowledge Workers, Bisociative Cognition
