Innovation as the key to gain performance from absorptive capacity and human capital

ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate how firms can achieve high levels of organisational performance through innovation, absorptive capacity (ACAP) and human capital (HC). Using a sample of 138 Spanish companies from the wine industry, our findings show that ACAP and HC allow businesses to fully capture the benefits of innovation. These results contribute to the literature of ACAP, human resources management (HRM) innovation and resource-based view (RBV) of the firm by showing that a number of resources and capabilities (ACAP, HC, and innovation) can be seen as good drivers of performance and, by extension, of competitive advantage.

KEYWORDS:

• Human capital (HC)
• absorptive capacity (ACAP)
• innovation
• performance
• resources based view (RBV)

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mahir Pradana is an Assistant Professor of Business Administration in the Business Administration Department, Telkom University (Bandung, Indonesia). He teaches Business Philosophy and Business Information System to undergraduate students.

Ana Pérez-Luño is a Full Professor of the Business Organisation and Marketing Department, Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Seville, Spain). She has a PhD in Business Administration and Management from the Universidad Pablo de Olavide since June 2007. She has been a visiting research scholar at Jönköping University (Sweden), at Syracuse University (USA) and at New Jersey Institute of Technology (USA), where she also taught a graduate and undergraduate course. During her career she has participated and led a large number of competitive research projects at national, regional and local level. As a result, she has more than 20 publications in scientific journals (Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, Family Business Review, Human Resource Management, Int. J. Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Management Research, Technovation, British Journal of Management, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Journal of Business Research, Cuadernos de Economía y Dirección de la Empresa, among others), several book chapters and presentation of papers at major national (ACEDE) and international scientific conferences (Academy of Management, Strategic Management Conference, EURAM, etc).

Maria Fuentes-Blasco is an Associate Professor of Marketing at Universidad Pablo de Olavide (Seville, Spain). She has a PhD in Business Administration and Management from the Valencia University since July 2008. Her research interests are innovation and marketing modelling. Her work has been published in international journals such as Service Industries Journal, Industrial Marketing Management, Service Business, Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, Industrial Marketing Management, among others.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Consejería de Economía, Innovación, Ciencia y Empleo, Junta de Andalucía [grant number SEJ-6392]; Ministerio de Ciencia y Tecnología [grant number SEC2006-15105].