Communicating explicit and tacit knowledge within and across organizational borders: Their impact on absorptive capacity and competitive advantage

Drawing on knowledge management and organizational learning, we address how tacitness and explicitness of the knowledge acquired from one´s partner affect the way communication mechanisms help build the firm´s absorptive capacity. We also examine the different roles the two absorptive capacity subsets play in the development of firms´ competitive advantage when knowledge types vary. With a sample of 286 corporations in China, our structural model analysis shows that the type of konwledge does moderate the relationships between communication, absorptive capacity and firms´ competitive advantage. This study contributes to the literature by empirically proving that the knowledge type is an important variable to consider in the study of firms´ absorptive capacity. It also suggests that business practitioners should take the type of the knowledge their partners possess into consideration if they want to optimize their learning outcome.