A Conceptual Interaction Cycle Between Individual and Group Absorptive Capacity with Social Integration Mechanism and Cohesive Learning Group as Moderating Variables

Abstract

Many researchers agree that absorptive capacity (ACAP) is a critical multilevel construct (individual to organization) for innovation success. Interestingly, little attention has been paid to this construct independently or the interaction among the levels in a full cycle. This conceptual paper aimed to visualize a proposed research model to fill in the theoretical and empirical gap in the multilevel interaction by detailing some promising moderators from the ACAP conceptual model, that is, cohesive learning groups and social integration mechanisms adopted from organizational learning (OL) 4I theory. In addition, this paper identified feed forward and feedback mechanisms, creating a cycle in the interaction process that had been identified but never tested. Some propositions were conceptualized to address this research line of work, and a research model was proposed.