Taking Stock of the Absorptive Capacity Construct and its Dimensions in the Context of Technological Innovation: A Meta-Analytic Approach

Abstract

This meta-analysis serves to integrate evidence about the outcomes of absorbtive capacity (ACAP) resulting from different conceptualizations of its dimensionality. At the conceptual level, we examine three conceptualizations of ACAP—unidimensional, bidimensional, and multidimensional ACAP—and discuss their links to technological innovation and financial performance outcomes. At the empirical level, we examine effect sizes resulting from unidimensional, bidimensional, and multidimensional views of ACAP, and assess the impact of several methodological moderators on the links between ACAP and its outcomes. A total of 330 correlations from 96 studies show that ACAP is positively associated with organizational technological innovation and firm financial performance, and that these relationships are moderated by dimensionality, proxy choice, use of survey versus archival data, and cultural and industry context of the study. Recommendations for future theoretical and empirical studies of ACAP are included.