From Principals' Inspirational Vision Content and Potential Absorptive Capacity to Realized Absorptive Capacity: Predicting Teacher Absenteeism

Abstract

This paper builds upon the theoretical framework developed by Zahra and George (2002) to empirically explore, first,the moderator effect of principals' inspirational vision content as a social mechanism that reduces the gap betweenpotential absorptive capacity (PACAP; the ability to acquire and assimilate external knowledge) and realizedabsorptive capacity (RACAP; the ability to transform and exploit this external knowledge to school processes); andsecond, the relationship between RACAP and long-term school outcomes (teachers' absenteeism 1 year later). Basedon a sample of 600 teachers from 100 elementary schools in Israel, results showed that the relationship betweenPACAP and RACAP is not conditioned by principals' inspirational vision content. The latter and PACAP predictedRACAP separately. Further, RACAP was negatively correlated with teacher absenteeism. This study provides adeeper understanding of the ACAP model in the school context and opens new avenues to exploring the socialintegration mechanism between PACAP and RACAP. It also adds a new construct to predict teacher absenteeismover the long term.