Exploring the absorptive capacity to innovation/productivity link for individual engineers engaged in IT enabled work

Authors:
Xiaodong Deng;William J. Doll;Mei Cao
Affiliations:
Department of Decision and Information Sciences, Oakland University, School of Business Administration, 2200 North Squirrel Road, Rochester Hills, MI 48309, United States;Management Department, The University of Toledo, Toledo, OH, United States;Department of Business & Economics, University of Wisconsin-Superior, Superior, WI, United States
Venue:
Information and Management
Year:
2008

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Abstract

The hypothesis that absorptive capacity leads to greater innovation/productivity has been supported at the country, inter-organizational, organizational, and group levels. We adapted the absorptive capacity concept to individuals engaged in IT enabled engineering work, which is a situated and emergent phenomenon that requires individuals to posses or develop ability to acquire new task and computer knowledge; use or develop analytical and intuitive problem solving skills to assimilate and integrate these two types of knowledge; and apply them to their work. A model was developed linking the absorptive capacity of individuals, through enhanced IT utilization for problem solving/decision support, to task innovation and productivity. It was tested using a sample of 208 engineers using computers in their work. The results suggested that using IT innovatively and productively in such a work environment requires a mix of task knowledge, computer knowledge, and problem solving modalities.