The Environmental Context of Absorptive Capacity for Collaborative Care Management

Abstract

Absorptive capacity is a theoretically and practically useful framework for both understanding and informing the acquisition, assimilation and exploitation of innovations within organizations. In this conceptual paper, we expand the context of absorptive capacity to include environmental factors, drawing on both resource dependency theory and institutional theory, to better understand their role within the absorptive capacity process. We utilize Collaborative Care Management, a cost effective, team-based healthcare delivery model for depression patients, as a case study to explore relevant environmental constructs within the proposed framework, including power, legitimacy, regulations, norms, and beliefs. Based on a series of propositions from this conceptual analysis, we present existing research that has addressed aspects of the propositions and propose new approaches to incorporate the environment within studies of absorptive capacity. As the United States health care field enters an era of new delivery models and potentially systematic changes, it is critical to understand how organizations absorb these changes and how the environment affects their absorptive capacity.