Fortune Favors the Prepared Firm
提出吸收能力概念，指企业利用新技术的能力，并构建模型分析垄断者和竞争环境下企业投资吸收能力的决策，对管理和公共政策有启示。
A critical factor in industrial competitiveness is the ability of firms to exploit new technological developments. We term this ability a firm's absorptive capacity and argue that such a capability not only enables a firm to exploit new extramural knowledge, but to predict more accurately the nature of future technological advances. We develop a stylized model in which we focus exclusively on firms' decisions to invest in their absorptive capacities. We first examine a monopolist's investment decision, analyzing the path dependence of its investment and the effect of uncertainty. We then consider the effect of competition by modeling the impact of entry on an incumbent's investment behavior. Implications for management and public policy are then discussed.