Abstract
Absorptive capacity (AC) has been identified as one of the key dynamic capabilities required for achieving continuous learning and developing organizational knowledge. Despite remarkable academic interest in AC, we still lack a systematic multi-level investigation of AC. This lack of attention is especially problematic for it obstructs our insights concerning how much of an organization’s ability to absorb new knowledge comes from its individual members and how much of this ability is due to its own systems and levers. To address this, we adopt interactionist perspective and examine the role of individual-level personality characteristics and group-level transactive memory systems on the development of AC. We test our hypotheses by collecting data from 648 individuals working in 126 departments in a large European manufacturing company. Results largely confirm our theoretical predictions.