The Research On The Knowledge Absorptive Capacity Of SME's With A Perspective Of Extensive Resource-based View

In the era of information economy knowledge has become a key resource for firms to build up competitive advantage and win core competence. According to the theory of firm knowledge, the resources which influence value creation of firms can not only include the traditional resources, such as earth, physical capital and labor, but also include knowledge. Furthermore, knowledge is playing a more and more important role in the sustainable process of firms. However, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are facing "liability of smallness" and "liability of newness", which can definitely result in the shortage of knowledge resources, especially comparing with the established firms. With regard to SMEs, they usually emerge some unique characters, such as small size, short history, imperfect organization structure and institutions, low human resources level. On the other hand, the owners of SMEs are often lack of high degree, expertise, experiences and management skills. These disadvantages of SMEs can directly affect the availability of external knowledge and usually decrease their knowledge absorptive capacity. Therefore, it is very important for entrepreneurs to focus on the development of SMEs' knowledge absorptive capacity.Adopted an extensive resource-based view we explore the research on firm knowledge absorptive capacity. Here we define firm knowledge resource as a combination of both internal and external firm knowledge which could provide strategic opportunities for firms and influence the behavior and value of the firms. The key point of our definition is the characteristics of being valuable and useful no matter whether the knowledge comes from the external or internal. The extensive resource-base view is especially important for the SMEs because most SMEs are lack of knowledge resources. This view can help SMEs enlarge their resource perspectives. When the SMEs acquire the knowledge it is also a challenge for SMEs to absorb and make use of the knowledge. The best resolution is to build up a good absorptive capacity for SMEs. The absorptive capacity was influence by both internal and external elements. The internal elements include the current knowledge base of firms, organization learning, organization structure design and R&D. While we argue that the external elements should be considered in two ways as the external knowledge environment and the status of the firms in the knowledge networks.Based on the internal and external elements we then continuously concentrate on the building up of absorptive capacity for SMEs. Because of the "liability of smallness" and "liability of newness", the first challenge for SMEs is about the availability of external knowledge resources. Surely firm attractiveness is a golden key to resolve this problem. After acquiring the external knowledge resources, the efficiency and effect of absorptive capacity for SMEs mostly depend on their learning ability and cooperation ability with external organizations. In order to educate SMEs' learning ability we should strengthen organization learning and develop knowledge-oriented culture. In term of cooperation ability, strategic alliances and social networks are core points to be pay attention to.A conjunctive induction and deduction methodology has been applied throughout the whole thesis. As well, an extensive resource-based view, SMEs theory and the theory of firm knowledge management have also been used to conduct this research. We have two key innovations in this paper, one is the usage of a dynamic analysis method for knowledge absorptive capacity, and the other is the introduction and application of extensive resource-based view in this context of knowledge absorptive capacity.