Early efforts to develop absorptive capacity and their performance implications: differences among corporate and independent ventures

This paper examines the performance implications of efforts in absorptive capacity development for new ventures, companies in their eight first years of existence. We distinguish between corporate ventures (CVs) and ventures created by independent entrepreneurs (IVs) and explore the extent to which they vary in: (1) the emphasis on building different absorptive capacity dimensions and (2) their performance gains from absorptive capacity dimensions. Using data from 140 new ventures, our results show that CVs emphasize potential absorptive capacity (combining external knowledge acquisition and assimilation) more than IVs. Conversely, IVs focus more on exploiting external knowledge. We also find that efforts in activating realized absorptive capacity (combining external knowledge transformation and exploitation) have a negative effect on the performance of new ventures that is stronger for CVs than IVs. Yet, this negative effect of realized absorptive capacity on new venture performance is mitigated when combined with efforts in potential absorptive capacity in the case of CVs. The implications of our study for research into the multidimensional nature of absorptive capacity and the dynamic capabilities approach are discussed.