Conceptualising the Theory of Absorptive Capacity with Team Diversity

This paper examines the role of absorptive capacity and team diversity and proposes an integrative model of the university research team that incorporates relevant insights from knowledge diversity and team diversity. Within this context, the authors discussed a conceptual model that shows theory-derived relationships between the components of absorptive capacity that consists of knowledge recognition, knowledge assimilation, and knowledge application with various aspects of diversity. The proposed results indicate that the ability of a research team to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it and apply it to research outputs is critical to its output capabilities. The outcomes consist of Process Performance and Product Performance which reflected that the diversity knowledge has been diffused and applied in the research domains. This paper helps to promote a better understanding of absorptive capacity and delineate the critical importance of team diversity for research team’s success.