Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Language, Education, Humanities and Innovation 2015
ISBN 978-967-13879-0-0

Does Individual Absorptive Capacity Matters in Individual Knowledge Acquisition?

A. Fakhrorazi, H. Hartini

Universiti Utara Malaysia

ABSTRACT

In MNCs, knowledge is effectively delivered from knowledge repositories to the potential recipients only when the respected parties possess sufficient absorptive capacity to acquire that specific knowledge. For local workers, knowledge acquisition in MNCs is an important element for their skill enrichment as it provides them with the avenue to enhance their skills and knowledge. This activity allows host-country national (HCN) workers to become expert or specialist in the related area. Hence, the presence of MNCs in Malaysia is perceived to be the best medium for the effective knowledge acquisition activities among locals who are employed in these organizations. Overall, the study investigates the relationship between two main variables, individual absorptive capacity and individual knowledge acquisition of HCN workers in foreign MNCs in Malaysia. For the purpose of testing the hypotheses, a total of 1245 questionnaires were distributed using mail survey and drop-and-collect approach. Of 1245 questionnaires, a total of 345 persons participated in the survey. Since only fully completed questionnaires were taken into account for further analysis, the final dataset comprising of 305 observations were finalized and accepted.

KEYWORDS

Individual absorptive capacity, individual knowledge acquisition, knowledge management, MNCs

Back to Table of Contents
Download Full Paper (PDF)