The Impact of Corporate Culture on the Absorptive Capacity and Innovative Capacity of Companies

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the influence of corporate culture in the absorptive and innovative capacities of Spanish enterprises. This is an exploratory study conducted involving top managers from a sample of 53 large Spanish companies. An empirical analysis is performed using a structural equations model and bootstrapping methodology. The paper highlights the role of corporate culture as a concept that has a significant influence on the absorptive capacity and also on the innovative capacity of enterprises. The absorptive capacity is presented as a system that makes a work of observation, identification, collection and use of information and knowledge from abroad, which is considered essential to achieving and sustaining competitive advantage. The research performed shows how the different components of absorptive capacity, found in the literature are significant configuring the capacity as a latent variable with economic sense. Furthermore, regarding the sample studied, corporate culture has a significant influence on the innovative capacity. The model explains the influence of culture in the innovative capacity, and in the two components of it, incremental and radical innovation. The investigation has found also some interactions not included in the model proposed, as for example the relationship between the recognition as the part of the absorptive capacity component more related with radical innovation. The empirical model performed need to be replicated with other samples for further findings and possible generalization. Deconstructing corporate culture in eight dimensions permits to use some of them in a prescriptive way. The adoption of certain cultural values and attitudes and the use of management strategies designed to promote these values and attitudes, encourage the company to more easily benefit from the opportunities of their environment, increasing the ability to manage information of the environment.