To seek to uncover the micro-foundations or individual-level origins of organizational absorptive capacity

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To seek to uncover the micro-foundations or individual-level origins of organizational absorptive capacity
Organizational Absorptive capacity
Organizations all over the world are adopting new strategies to expand and maintain a competitive advantage in the global market. To develop the best strategies for advancement requires a vast amount of knowledge, skill and expertise. The ability of an organization to establish that new knowledge and external information is valuable, incorporate it and use it to achieve commercial goals is known as the Organizational Absorption Capacity (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990, p.150). Successful firms have constantly sought to acquire new knowledge from the environment. However, any firm must have some prior knowledge to be able to assimilate more information and utilize it.
The process of acquiring and utilizing knowledge in an organization is best understood through three main levels of foci; individual level, group level, organizational level, national level and international level (Valentina and Giuseppina, 2009, p.272). In the recent past, scholars have paid much attention to inter-organizational knowledge sharing processes while neglecting individual knowledge sharing processes. However, all learning processes are subject to human thought processes that determine human conduct and define human interactions in social settings (Lotfali et al., 2011, p.60). This paper explores, individuals as micro-foundations of organizations absorption capacity. It is necessary to understand the micro foundations since; they lead to understanding the organization as a system including the impact of human interaction in the organization.
Individual-level origins of organizational absorptive capacity
Human beings are rational and determine the nature of the knowledge to acquire and the knowledge to reject, the knowledge to utilize and the information to store for future reference (Felin and Foss, 2000, p.442). In addition, it would not be possible to explore intra-organisational knowledge processes without understanding the nature of human beings, their behaviours and the causes of such behaviour in organisational settings (French, 1957, p.399).
Decisions in organisations are sums or choices selected from a variety of human opinions. According to French, the best decisions are group decisions since; they are made out of human interactions (French, 1957, p.400). People gather information from various settings and decide on how to effectively apply it to their firm for commercial purposes. People vary in their thought processes responsible for determining the kind of behaviours that jointly establish the organisational success (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990, p.152). It is therefore appropriate; to develop an understanding of the individual organisational absorption level before seeking to understand other levels. There are no decisions that can be made without applying human Cognition.
The relationship between individuals and the organization is one of mutual benefit; Individuals affect organizations and organizations in turn have an impact on individuals’ life. Human conduct is guided by internal factors, which are responsible for conditioning human behavior towards a particular direction (Valentina and Giuseppina, 2009, p.272). The internal conditions cannot be observed but their resultant effects can be seen through individual behaviors. The organization shapes human cognition through human interaction. In addition, the environment defines human conduct through the following main processes; motivation, personal abilities and opportunities granted by the organization (French, 1957, p.400). The proper mix of these three processes determines organizational success. Managers should utilize the differences in people’s abilities to use maximally the opportunities that are available in the organization.
Scholars have focused on understanding factors responsible for increased individual absorption capacity in organizations all over the world. The best framework that has been adopted is that used to study the behavior of human resource management known as the Motivation opportunity ability framework (Felin and Foss, 2000, p.442). Ability and motivation are necessary for individuals to be able to seek knowledge and apply it in various contexts as is required. Opportunity only arises to support these two conditions. Human beings function best based on the abilities they possess (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990, p.150). However, recent research findings have indicated that motivation is also a major determinant of individuals’ ability to function properly in organizational settings (Felin and Foss, 2000, p.442). Some scholars hold that ability on its own accounts for a small percentage of success through hard work. On the other hand, motivation adds a new concept of job satisfaction, which ultimately is important in getting employee cooperation.
Increased worker cooperation is responsible for increased production since human resource is improved. Individuals learn more from the environment as they are constantly motivated by their success and interactions with others (Lotfali et al., 2011, p.60). On one hand, individuals who are easily motivated as a result of knowledge acquisition are inspired by internal factors such as high self-esteem, prestige and honor. On the other hand, workers who are motivated by external factors such as money are less influenced by any additional training or knowledge acquisition (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990, p.150). Knowledge empowerment is intrinsic and people obtain knowledge and store it in their mental faculties. They organize this knowledge and apply it to various situations in the working environment (Valentina and Giuseppina, 2009, p.272). Individuals that need extrinsic motivation have a weakness, since they do not value knowledge. These employees are motivated through extrinsic factors like money among other material goods. Most individuals who are creative are most often intrinsically motivated and use their mind to innovate new phenomenon (French, 1957, p.400).
The human mind is an important tool since it is capable of exploiting thousands of issues and deliberate over them before choosing the right approach (French, 1957, p.400). Once people are empowered or obtain knowledge from the outside world, they become more rational and use their knowledge and skills to arrive at decisions, which they could not have a...