Dissertation
External Knowledge Absorption in Chinese SMEs
Today, knowledge is the most crucial element to stimulate organizational competitiveness and economic development.
- Author
- Pi, L.
- Date
- 30 June 2021
- Links
- Thesis in Leiden Repository
Today, knowledge is the most crucial element to stimulate organizational competitiveness and economic development. The ability of a firm to quickly recognize, assimilate, and utilize external knowledge is one of the core capabilities that bring organizational competitive advantages. Such an ability is called absorptive capacity (AC). This study focuses on three AC-related topics in the context of Chinese SMEs: 1) How do SMEs absorb external knowledge in terms of its recognition, assimilation, and utilization? 2) What challenges do SMEs face when absorbing external knowledge? And, 3)Which knowledge assimilation mechanisms do have an impact on the performance of SMEs?