The Structure of Absorptive Capacity in Three Product Development Strategies
研究分析了吸收能力的四个组成部分（研发能力、产品开发能力、合作嵌入性和竞争嵌入性）如何影响激进创新、差异化模仿和仿制三种产品开发战略的成功率，基于美国制药行业数据发现不同战略需要不同的吸收能力结构。
This study develops and tests theory about different forms of absorptive capacity that support radical, differentiation and imitation product development strategies. Absorptive capacity theory provides a generalized explanation for how firms exploit their embeddedness in relationships with buyers and suppliers. We develop and test theory that relates combinations of four components of absorptive capacity (R&D capability, product development capability, cooperative embeddedness, and competitive embeddedness) to success rates in three product development strategies. We used data from the American pharmaceutical industry to estimate generalized linear mixed models. Our results confirm known relationships between R&D capability, alliance network position, and the development of radically new products, but reveal different sets of factors that influence differentiation and imitation. We describe a previously undetected influence of competitive embeddedness on the development of radically new products, a contrasting absorptive capacity structure for generic product development, and a mixed structure for differentiated product development.