Hostname: page-component-7dd5485656-wxk4p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-10-31T00:16:22.619Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Multilevel absorptive capacity and interorganizational new product development: A process study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Lance Newey  and
Martie-Louise Verreynne
Lance Newey
Affiliation:
School of Business, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
Martie-Louise Verreynne
Affiliation:
School of Business, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The objective of this paper is to deepen our understanding of the role of absorptive capacity in enabling interorganizational new product development (INPD). We contend that despite what is known about the benefits of absorptive capacity to innovating firms, this research is dominated by firm-level analyses using cross-sectional data. The accumulated knowledge about absorptive capacity thus does not help with understanding how absorptive capacity unfolds as a process within and between firms such as when firms collaborate in new product development. Using a longitudinal case study, we build new theory at the INPD system level of analysis that leads us to shed new light on the cross-level interactions between firm- and alliance-level absorptive capacities.

Keywords

interorganizational new product development systemsabsorptive capacitylongitudinal case studytheory-buildingcross-level interactions

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 39 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ahuja, G. (2000). The duality of collaboration: Inducements and opportunities in the formation of interfirm linkages. Strategic Management Journal, 21, 317–343.Google Scholar
Arora, A., Fosfuri, A., & Gambardella, A. (2001). Markets for technology: The economics of innovation and corporate strategy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Brusoni, S., & Prencipe, A. (2001). Managing knowledge in loosely coupled networks: Exploring the links between product and knowledge dynamics. Journal of Management Studies, 38(7), 1019–1035.Google Scholar
Brusoni, S., Prencipe, A., & Pavitt, K. (2001). Knowledge specialization, organizational coupling and the boundaries of the firm: Why do firms know more than they make? Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 597–621.Google Scholar
Chesbrough, H. (2003). Open innovation: The new imperative for creating and profi ting from technology. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1990). Absorptive capacity: A new perspective on learning and innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 128–152.Google Scholar
Cohen, W. M., & Levinthal, D. A. (1994). Fortune favors the prepared firm. Management Science, 40(2), 227–251.Google Scholar
Coombs, R., & Metcalfe, J. S. (2000). Organizing for innovation: Coordinating distributed innovation capabilities. In Foss, N. & Mahnke, V. (Eds.), Competence, covernance and entrepreneurship (pp. 209–231). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, R. G. (2001). Winning at new products: Accelerating the process from idea to launch. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Das, T. K., & Teng, B.-S. (2000). Instabilities of strategic alliances: An internal tensions perspective. Organization Science, 11(1), 77–101.Google Scholar
Deeds, D. L., & Hill, C. W. L. (1996). Strategic alliances and the rate of new product development: An empirical study of entrepreneurial bio-technology firms. Journal of Business Venturing, 11, 41–55.Google Scholar
Dougherty, D. (1992). Interpretive barriers to successful product innovation in large firms. Organization Science, 3, 179–202.Google Scholar
Doz, Y., & Hamel, G. (1998). Alliance advantage: The art of creating value through partnering. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.Google Scholar
Dyer, J. H., & Singh, H. (1998). The relational view: Cooperative strategy and sources of interorganizational competitive advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23(4), 660–679.Google Scholar
Eisenhardt, K. M. (1989). Building theories from case study research. Academy of Management Review, 14(4), 532–550.Google Scholar
Enkel, E., Gassmann, O., & Chesbrough, H. (2009). Open R&D and open innovation: Exploring the phenomenon. R&D Management, 39(4), 311–316.Google Scholar
Fabrizio, K. R. (2009). Absorptive capacity and the search for innovation. Research Policy, 38, 255–267.Google Scholar
Gerwin, D. (2004). Coordinating new product development in strategic alliances. Academy of Management Review, 29(2), 241–257.Google Scholar
Gerwin, D., & Ferris, J. S. (2004). Organizing new product development projects in strategic alliances. Organization Science, 15(1), 22–37.Google Scholar
Lane, P. J., Koka, B. R., & Pathak, S. (2006). The reifi cation of absorptive capacity: A critical review and rejuvenation of the construct. Academy of Management Review, 31(4), 833–863.Google Scholar
Lane, P. J., & Lubatkin, M. (1998). Relative absorptive capacity and interorganizational learning. Strategic Management Journal, 19(5), 461–477.Google Scholar
Langley, A. (1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review, 24(4), 691–710.Google Scholar
Luke, B., Verreynne, M., & Kearins, K. (2007). Measuring the benefi ts of entrepreneurship at different levels of analysis. Journal of Management and Organisation (Special Issue on Entrepreneurship), 13(4), 312–330.Google Scholar
Mora-Valentin, E. M., Montoro-Sanchez, A., & Guerras-Martin, L. A. (2004). Determining factors in the success of R&D cooperative agreements between firms and research organizations. Research Policy, 33, 17–40.Google Scholar
Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital and the organizational advantage. Academy of Management Review, 38(2), 242–266.Google Scholar
Osborn, R. N., & Hagedoorn, J. (1997). The institutionalisation and evolutionary dynamics of interorganizational alliances and networks. Academy of Management Journal, 40(2), 261–278.Google Scholar
Pettigrew, A. M. (1997). What is a processual analysis? Scandinavian Journal of Management, 13(4), 337–348.Google Scholar
Prencipe, A., Davies, A., & Hobday, M. (2003). The business of systems integration. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rothaermel, F. T., & Deeds, D. L. (2004). Exploration and exploitation alliances in bio-technology: A system of new product development. Strategic Management Journal, 25, 201–221.Google Scholar
Schmikl, C., & Kieser, A. (2008). How much do specialists have to learn from each other when they jointly develop radical product innovations? Research Policy, 37, 473–491.Google Scholar
Suseno, Y., & Ratten, V. (2007). A theoretical framework of alliance performance: The role of trust, social capital and knowledge development. Journal of Management and Organization, 13, 4–24.Google Scholar
Szulanski, G. (1996). Exploring internal stickiness: Impediments to the transfer of best practice within the firm. Strategic Management Journal, 17, 27–43.Google Scholar
Todorova, G., & Durisin, B. (2007). Absorptive capacity: Valuing a reconceptualization. Academy of Management Review, 32(3), 774–786.Google Scholar
Van den Bosch, F., Van Wijk, R., & Volberda, H. W. (2003). Absorptive capacity: Antecedents, models and outcomes. In Easterby-Smith, M. & Lyles, M. A. (Eds.), The Blackwell handbook of organizational learning and knowledge management (pp. 159–176). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Limited.Google Scholar
Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Zahra, S. A., & George, G. (2002). Absorptive capacity: A review, reconceptualization and extension. Academy of Management Review, 27(2), 185–203.Google Scholar