Coevolution of firm absorptive capacity and knowledge environment: Organizational forms and combinative capabilities

This paper advances the understanding of absorptive capacity for assimilati ng new knowledge as a mediating variable of organization adaptation. Many s cholars suggest a firm's absorptive capacity plays a key role in the proces s of coevolution (Lewin et al., this issue). So far, most publications, in following Cohen and Levinthal (1990), have considered the level of prior re lated knowledge as the determinant of absorptive capacity. We suggest, howe ver, that two specific organizational determinants of absorptive capacity s hould also be considered: organization forms and combinative capabilities. We will show how these organizational determinants influence the level of a bsorptive capacity, ceteris paribus the level of prior related knowledge. S ubsequently, we will develop st framework in which absorptive capacity is r elated to both micro- and macro-coevolutionary effects. This framework offe rs an explanation of how knowledge environments coevolve with the emergence of organization forms and combinative capabilities that are suitable for a bsorbing knowledge. We will illustrate the framework by discussing two long itudinal case studies of traditional publishing firms moving into the turbu lent knowledge environment of an emerging multimedia industrial complex.