The role of realized absorptive capacity in potential absorptive capacity and business model innovation

Knowledge absorptive capacity can be regarded as an important factor in business model innovation. The objective of the present study was to explore the mediating role of realized absorptive capacity in the relationship between potential absorptive capacity and business model innovation. This is an applied descriptive survey. The population included auto parts manufacturing companies and assemblies of Iran Khodro Company (IKCO). Based on the statistics, about 500 companies currently supply auto parts and assemblies needed for IKCO. Krejcie and Morgan's table was used to determine the sample size in the present study; simple random sampling was adopted due to the limited population. The sample size was estimated at 229. Respondents to the questionnaires of this study included strategy managers concerning the constructs of realized and potential absorptive capacity and engineering managers concerning the construct of business innovation. The standard questionnaire of Miroshnychenko et al. (2020) with a seven-option Likert scale was used for data collection. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for data analysis. The results indicated that there is a positive relationship between potential absorptive capacity and realized absorptive capacity. Furthermore, there is a positive relationship between realized absorptive capacity and business model innovation. Besides, realized absorptive capacity plays a mediating role in the relationship between potential absorptive capacity and business model innovation.