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Information Systems Theory pp 95–115Cite as

Scientia potentia est: Organizational Learning, Absorptive Capacity and the Power of Knowledge

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Part of the book series: Integrated Series in Information Systems ((ISIS,volume 29))

Abstract

An organization’s ability to learn from past experience and observation of the environment around it affects the efficiency and effectiveness of its operations. Organizational learning (OL) theory broadly defines this process in terms of seeking, interpreting, and using knowledge, with the process triggered by a reference gap and resulting in learning. The ability of the organization to leverage knowledge obtained through OL results in absorptive capacity (ACAP). ACAP specifically measures how the organization acquires, assimilates, transforms, and utilizes new information, resulting in both knowledge and commercial outputs and competitive advantages. While OL describes the construction of the knowledge base, ACAP describes how learning results in performance, flexibility, and innovation. ACAP is especially critical in rapidly changing, complex, or highly uncertain environments requiring the assimilation of a great deal of information in contexts which may not be programmable. Today’s digital environment, with the widespread availability of vast amounts of detailed, real-time information, renders the ability to screen, analyze, communicate, retrieve, store, and use new information into the key to increased performance, better organization–environment strategic fit, and lasting competitive advantage.

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Notes

  1. 1.

     But see Fiol and Lyles (1985) for an argument against learning as “adaptation.”

  2. 2.

     An interesting model using the OL framework to explain organizational strategic adjustments as a working out of competing goals in exploration versus exploitation may be found in Crossan et al. (1999).

  3. 3.

     Organizations tend to overemphasize operational efficiency and convergent learning as they increase in age, size, and complexity, producing the movement toward institutional isomorphism remarked upon in the literature (DiMaggio and Powell 1983; Koza and Lewin 1998).

  4. 4.

     An excellent example of ACAP in action is given by the founder of Dogfish Head Brewery in a discussion of entrepreneurship and the history of his organization (Calagione 2005).

  5. 5.

     Note that this is R&D by one firm alone, and not R&D in partnership with another, complementary organization.

Abbreviations

ACAP:

Absorptive capacity

DLL:

Double-loop learning

IS:

Information systems

IT:

Information technology

OL:

Organizational learning

PACAP:

Potential absorptive capacity

RACAP:

Realized absorptive capacity

RBV:

Resource-based view of the firm

SEM:

Structural equation modeling

SLL:

Single-loop learning

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Acknowledgments

Thanks are due Vicky Arnold and Steve Sutton for input on a previous incarnation of this project and for their continued encouragement and patience with overly-complicated models and excessive enthusiasm.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kenneth G. Dixon School of Accounting, College of Business Administration, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd, 161991, Orlando, FL, 32816-1991, USA

    Kimberly A. Zahller

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  1. Kimberly A. Zahller
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Correspondence to Kimberly A. Zahller .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , School of Business and Economics, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea, Wales, SA2 8PP, United Kingdom

    Yogesh K. Dwivedi

  2. IMD, Ch. de Bellerive 23, Lausanne, 1001, Switzerland

    Michael R. Wade

  3. Principia College, Maybeck Place 1, Elsah, 62028, Illinois, USA

    Scott L. Schneberger

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Zahller, K.A. (2012). Scientia potentia est: Organizational Learning, Absorptive Capacity and the Power of Knowledge. In: Dwivedi, Y., Wade, M., Schneberger, S. (eds) Information Systems Theory. Integrated Series in Information Systems, vol 29. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9707-4_6

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