Narrow Results

Knowledge is considered to be a useful tool for a firm's competitiveness and sustainability. There is considerable evidence confirming that firm-level knowledge (FLK) accumulation provides a competitive advantage for firms, through innovation. Therefore, most knowledge-intensive firms accumulate FLK via exploitative practices to prevent deterioration of their innovation performance. This study adopts methods including expert interviews, an analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy set theory to analyse the FLK accumulation in firms. This study proposes that three influential factors for FLK accumulation are knowledge integration (KI), knowledge absorption (KA) and knowledge sharing (KS). This study reveals that KI is the most influential factor of a firm's FLK accumulation, and the sub-factor of “Integration Ability” plays the most critical role of KI in FLK accumulation.

Absorptive capacity (ACAP) is one of the most active themes in knowledge management literature. The topic is extensively mentioned in several relevant research fields, including innovation, organisational learning and strategic management. In this study, we employed bibliographic coupling to analyse the extant academic literature published in order to detect research fronts on the theme. Our sample includes 2,072 papers published in the last four years, which is in line with our basic intent to investigate the latest academic research. Papers included in the core research front highlight the role of ACAP as an organisational ability to assess new valuable knowledge, aiding the development of organisational capabilities. The role of knowledge absorption capacity in alliance networks, open innovation processes, intra-organisational learning, as well as exploratory and exploitative initiatives are the other relevant research fronts identified. We suggest the proposed implications of the analysis as material for further research on the theme.