Premium
Determinants of absorptive capacity: contrasting manufacturing vs services enterprises
Author(s) -
Chang ChingHsun,
Chen YuShan,
Lin MingJi James
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
randd management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.253
H-Index - 102
eISSN - 1467-9310
pISSN - 0033-6807
DOI - 10.1111/radm.12086
Subject(s) - absorptive capacity , flexibility (engineering) , business , resource (disambiguation) , service (business) , industrial organization , structural equation modeling , tertiary sector of the economy , manufacturing , product (mathematics) , conceptual model , empirical research , resource dependence theory , new product development , knowledge management , marketing , computer science , management , economics , computer network , philosophy , geometry , mathematics , epistemology , machine learning , database
The purpose of this study is to explore the determinants and the consequent of absorptive capacity from the resource‐capability‐performance framework in the T aiwanese manufacturing and service industries. Structural equation modeling is applied to verify the conceptual model. In both of the T aiwanese manufacturing industry and the T aiwanese service industry, this study verifies that resource commitment and resource flexibility are two antecedents of absorptive capacity, and that new product development performance or service innovation performance is its consequent. Besides, the empirical results show that absorptive capacity plays a partial mediator in the manufacturing industry but a full mediator in the service industry. If companies would like to raise their new product development performance or service innovation performance, they have to enhance their resource commitment, resource flexibility, and absorptive capacity. Moreover, this study finds that the resource commitment of small and medium enterprises is significantly less than that of large enterprises in T aiwanese manufacturing industry. This study also finds that resource flexibility of established companies is significantly higher than that of younger companies in T aiwan.