Micro antecedents of absorptive capacity: Implications of social context in joint project teams in Nigerian upstream oil industry.

摘要

This study provides empirical response to recent calls for clarification on the micro-foundation of absorptive capacity (ACAP). ACAP originates in Cohen and Levinthal's seminal work to explain firm's incentive for learning, which is the ability to recognize the value of new knowledge, assimilate it and commercially apply it. Thus advancing the extant assertion on conceptual affinity, this study synthesizes socio-psychological theory in creativity and organisational learning to delineate the specific antecedents for each dimension of ACAP. The individual's prior experience, need for cognition, learning and performance approach goal orientation are hypothesized as predictors of an individual's ability to recognize the value of a foreign partner's knowledge and assimilate it. And based on strategic alliance literature, the effects of social context in terms of trust in and support from foreign partners are proposed on the individual ability to recognize, team shared cognition and ability to utilize foreign partner knowledge. The data was collected from a cross sectional survey of local individual members of joint project teams (n=248) in the Nigerian upstream oil industry. And statistical analyses were conducted with the aid of SPSS and SEM (i.e., AMOS) software packages.