Absorptive Capacity and Organizational Performance: A Review and Research Agenda

This paper reviews the state-of-the-field on the link between absorptive capacity (ACAP) and organizational performance. We organize and synthesise the relationship between ACAP and organizational performance according to research approaches used and theories applied to understand the ACAP- organizational performance link. We identify and analyse 217 papers on ACAP and performance published between 1990 and 2015 in high impact business and management journals. The review reveals that the field is at the risk of increasing fragmentation. We advocate that future research should be cognizant of the theoretical and empirical pluralism in how the ACAP- performance link has been examined.