O funcionamento da cadeia de suprimentos é um tema atual que tem motivado muitas pesquisas para o entendimento da sua dinâmica como fonte de obtenção de vantagem competitiva. O bullwhip effect - efeito de oscilação de demanda dentro da cadeia de suprimentos - é um dos causadores de ineficiências operacionais e de consequentes gastos desnecessários. Esse fenômeno ainda não foi estudado em sua totalidade; a maioria das pesquisas até então utilizaram-se de análises quantitativas, não levando em conta fatores qualitativos presentes em situações de oscilação de demanda, tais como: a experiência do programador de demanda, as capabilidades desenvolvidas pela empresa e os métodos que ela utiliza para integrar o conhecimento sobre o fenômeno. Esta pesquisa contribui nesse sentido. Coloca em evidência, por meio da análise qualitativa do bullwhip effect e dos fundamentos do processo de capacidade absortiva. Busca-se integrar esses dois conceitos, até então não abordados conjuntamente. A reunião desse referencial e dos resultados obtidos por intermédio das observações deverá fornecer subsídios para a melhor compreensão do fenômeno. A estratégia de pesquisa selecionada se deu por meio de estudos de caso com três empresas brasileiras, de diferentes setores. Entrevistaram-se sete executivos das empresas, responsáveis pela programação da produção e a análise de demanda. Foram encontrados muitos pontos convergentes entre a literatura e a prática empresarial, principalmente sobre os fundamentos da capacidade absortiva em uma situação de bullwhip effect, como também entre as diferentes dimensões da capacidade absortiva per se. A principal contribuição da pesquisa está em integrar orientações teóricas e ações práticas desenvolvidas pelas empresas sob o bullwhip effect, relacionadas com a capacidade absortiva, dando destaque aos fatores humanos, o que propicia um referencial mais abrangente para examinar esses processos. Em nível gerencial, oferece-se subsídios aos gestores no aprimoramento de técnicas de absorção do conhecimento em situações de oscilação de demanda, tornando suas previsões e a produção mais eficientes. / The operation of the supply chain is a current topic and it has motivated many researches in order to understand its dynamic as source of obtaining competitive advantage. The bullwhip effect - the effect of oscillating demand inside the supply chain - is one of the originators of operational inefficiencies and consequent unnecessary expenditure. This phenomenon has not been studied in its totality yet; most researches have used quantitative analysis so far, not taking into account qualitative factors which are present in oscillating demand situations, such as: the experience of the demand manager, the capabilities developed by the company and the methods which it uses to integrate the knowledge about the phenomenon. This research contributes in this sense. It highlights through the bullwhip effect qualitative analysis and the process fundamentals of absorptive capacity. It pursuits to integrate these two concepts which have not thus far been approached together. The reunion of this reference and the obtained results through remarks should provide subsidies for better comprehension of the phenomenon. The research strategy selected was through case studies with three Brazilian companies of different sectors. Seven executives of the companies were interviewed; they are responsible for the production programming and for the demand analysis. Many convergent points were found between literature and the business practice, mainly concerning the fundamentals of absorptive capacity in a bullwhip effect situation, as well as among the different dimensions of absorptive capacity per se. The main contribution of the research is to integrate theoretical orientations and practical actions developed by the companies under the bullwhip effect, which are related to the absorptive capacity, highlighting to the human factors, which provides a reference more comprehensive to examine these processes. In a managerial level, subsidies are offered to the managers in the improvement of the absorption techniques of the knowledge in oscillating demand situations, making their forecasts and the production more efficient.

Com base na literatura sobre capacidade absortiva e nos estudos de inovação, argumenta-se neste trabalho que a capacidade absortiva influencia as atividades de de inovação. O modelo de capacidade absortiva utilizado foi o de Zahra e George (2002), que tem por base a capacidade absortiva potencial (dimensões de aquisição e assimilação) e capacidade absortiva realizada (dimensões de transformação e exploração (exploitation)). A inovação foi entendida como um processo que pode gerar inovações organizacionais, em produtos e processos, e de marketing. Este estudo tem por foco, porém, inovações de produtos e processos. Dessa forma, com o objetivo de entender como a capacidade absortiva influencia a inovação de produtos e processos em micro e pequenas empresas brasileiras, o presente estudo adotou uma abordagem qualitativa, por meio da investigação sob a forma de múltiplos casos. Para isso, foram desenvolvidos dois estudos de casos no segmento da indústria náutica. Os casos foram analisados em separado e depois foram comparados, buscando semelhanças que ampliassem a compreensão do fenômeno. Os resultados sugerem que há uma influência positiva da capacidade absortiva nas atividades de inovação das micro e pequenas empresas da indústria náutica brasileira. Alguns elementos diferenciais foram encontrados, como o fato de que, nos casos estudados, o processo de inovação se inicia a partir da experiência acumulada, da percepção dos proprietários, das informações oriundas de clientes e velejadores e das informações obtidas junto aos fornecedores. Outro elemento foi de que há, por vezes, um processo de realimentação entre as dimensões de assimilação e transformação, mesmo que curto, antes da informação ser explorada (exploited) sob a forma de novos produtos ou de processos mais eficientes. Por fim, foi encontrado que o nível de desenvolvimento da capacidade absortiva influencia na inovação de produtos e processos. A contribuição final do estudo se compõe de um framework integrado que demonstra a influência e o funcionamento da capacidade absortiva na geração de inovações de produtos e processos nas empresas estudadas. / Based on the literature on absorptive capacity and innovation studies, it is argued in this research that the absorptive capacity influences the activities of innovation. It was used the model of absorptive capacity of Zahra and George (2002), which is based on the potential absorptive capacity comprised by the dimensions of acquisition and assimilation, and on realized absorptive capacity, based on the dimensions of transformation and exploitation. Innovation is understood as a process that can generate innovations in products and processes, services, organization and marketing. However, this study focuses on innovations in products and processes. Thus, in order to understand how the absorptive capacity influences the innovation of products and processes in Brazilian micro and small firms, this study adopted a qualitative approach. A multiple cases study was conducted in the marine industry. The two cases were analyzed separately and then compared, looking for similarities that would broaden the understanding of the phenomenon. The results suggest a positive influence of absorptive capacity on innovation activities of micro and small firms in the Brazilian marine industry. Some differential elements were found, such as the fact that, in the cases studied, the process of innovation starts from the accumulated experience, the perception of the owners, the information from customers and sailors and the information obtained from the suppliers. Another factor is that there is sometimes a feedback process between the dimensions of assimilation and transformation, even though short, before the information is exploited in the form of new products and more efficient processes. Finally, it was found that the level of development of absorptive capacity influences the innovation of products and processes. The final contribution of this study consists of an integrative framework that demonstrates the influence and operation of absorptive capacity in generating innovation of products and processes in micro and small firms.

Os mercados cada vez mais competitivos fazem com que as empresas busquem novas formas organizacionais e desenvolvam \"capacidades dinâmicas\" a fim de sobreviver no mundo globalizado. Nesse contexto, a inovação se tornou tema central para a competitividade. As fontes de inovação estão cada vez mais diversificadas e dispersas geograficamente, as empresas utilizam fontes internas e externas para o desenvolvimento de soluções inovadoras e modelos de negócios diferenciados. Estudos afirmam, que durante todos os anos, são produzidos milhares de artigos científicos que envolvem a biotecnologia, mostrando que é um dos campos mais promissores do mundo, com implicações importantes para economia global. A biotecnologia é caracterizada por ser baseada na ciência, ser multidisciplinar e o seu desenvolvimento é realizado por meio da interface com diversos atores, sendo altamente dependente do seu ambiente institucional. Assim, dado o contexto da biotecnologia, as lentes da teoria das capacidades dinâmicas são úteis para verificar a construção do conhecimento que conduz ao desenvolvimento de novos produtos, já que as empresas não podem depender somente do desenvolvimento do conhecimento interno, elas devem absorver conhecimentos relevantes de fontes externas. No setor de biotecnologia, verifica-se uma série de casos de alianças para melhoria de competitividade global por meio da inovação em sua forma mais ampla, incluindo desenvolvimento de novos produtos, de novos formatos para negócios, de novos mecanismos organizacionais. Como a capacidade de absorção é vista como um dos elementos das capacidades dinâmicas e tornou-se fator crítico para o sucesso dessas empresas, o presente estudo tem como objetivo verificar se as alianças contribuem para o desenvolvimento da capacidade de absorção e o desempenho inovador das empresas dedicadas à biotecnologia. O estudo é classificado como exploratório-descritivo e foi conduzido em duas etapas: quantitativa e qualitativa. Na etapa qualitativa foram realizados cinco estudos de caso e na quantitativa foram enviados questionários à 270 empresas do setor de biotecnologia, instaladas no Brasil, Portugal e Espanha. Verificou-se, por meio do estudo, a importância das alianças no desenvolvimento das quatro dimensões da capacidade de absorção. Ademais, identificou-se que as alianças também influenciam no desempenho inovador das empresas. Pode-se ainda relatar que a idade das empresas influencia na assimilação do conhecimento e a experiência do gestor influencia tanto a assimilação quanto a transformação do conhecimento. Por fim, verificou-se também que as parcerias no exterior levam as empresas a um desempenho inovador superior. Dessa forma a pesquisa contribuiu para o desenvolvimento da literatura sobre capacidade de absorção, bem como pode auxiliar os gestores das empresas dedicadas à biotecnologia e dos habitats de inovação por meio do modelo proposto para o desenvolvimento da capacidade de absorção e, para o governo, na formulação de políticas e incentivos para o desenvolvimento da biotecnologia. / The increasingly competitive markets mean that companies seek new organizational forms and develop \"dynamic capabilities\" in order to survive in the globalized world. In this context, innovation has become central to competitiveness. Sources of innovation are increasingly diverse and geographically dispersed; companies use internal and external sources for the development of innovative and differentiated business models. Studies claim that during each year produce thousands of scientific articles involving biotechnology, showing that it is one of the most promising fields in the world, with important implications for the global economy. Biotechnology is characterized as a science-based, multidisciplinary and its development is carried out through the interface with different actors, being highly dependent on its institutional environment. Thus, given the biotech context, the dynamic capabilities theory of lenses are useful to verify the construction of knowledge that leads to the development of new products, since it is dependent on new knowledge and business cannot depend on only development of internal knowledge, they must absorb relevant knowledge from external sources. In the biotechnology sector, there are series of alliances to improve global competitiveness through innovation in its broadest form, including development of new products, new formats for business, new organizational mechanisms. As the absorptive capacity has seen as one of the elements of dynamic capabilities and has become critical to the success of these companies, this study aims to determine whether the alliances contribute to the development of absorptive capacity and the innovation performance of dedicated biotechnology firms. The research is classified as exploratory and descriptive study since it was conducted in two phases: quantitative and qualitative. The qualitative analysis was collected from five case studies and quantitative questionnaires were sent to 270 companies in the biotechnology sector, installed in Brazil, Portugal and Spain. It has found the importance of alliances in the development of the four dimensions of absorptive capacity. In addition, we identified also that alliances influence the innovation performance of firms. One can also report that the age of the company influences the assimilation of knowledge and the manager\'s experience influences both the assimilation and the transformation of knowledge. Finally, the study also has found that alliances abroad lead to companies having a higher innovation performance. Thus, the research contributed to the development of literature on absorptive capacity and could assist managers of companies dedicated to biotechnology and innovation habitats through the proposed model to develop absorptive capacity and, to the government, in the formulation of policies and incentives for development of biotechnology.

Date: 2008-06-04 Course: EIK 034 Masters Thesis Authors: Laxmi Rao & Zarina Osmonalieva Tutor: Ole Liljefors Title: Which factors facilitate the management of external knowledge? Introduction: Today more and more organisations are realising that handling internal and external knowledge is a key issue for successful performance. Different theories describe the importance of this topic, for instance, Porter’s Five Forces model and Hedman & Kalling’s General Business Model demonstrate how organizations are strongly influenced by external forces. Hedman & Kalling’s model particularly demonstrates that organizations need to have the competence, capability and resources to effectively manage external knowledge in order to increase their competitiveness and develop and improve their long term survival. Purpose: Nicholas Carr highlights that for the past decade organizational investment in IT and IS has reached nearly 50% of capital expenditure, while the organizations see little or no performance improvement as a result of this investment. While IT systems are good at storing and retrieving information, the success of the systems heavily relies on the quality of the external and internal knowledge used both during development and usage. A deeper awareness of factors which facilitate the management of external knowledge is relevant to IT managers (indeed all managers) as it will help to facilitate the development and implementation of information systems and technology which are designed to facilitate knowledge management in organisations. Methodology: In the thesis factors related to effective management of external knowledge are identified and described. The General Business Model was used as a tool to identify and categorize the literature review into key themes. Conclusions One of the findings is that most published research focuses on factors internal to organizations such as activities and resources and there are few papers dealing with external factors for knowledge management. It was also found that literature which focussed on external factors mainly focused on the role of individuals as resources who cross the boundary of the organization in order to acquire and diffuse the external knowledge. In general the topic of external knowledge management is not studied in a holistic way. The acquisition and diffusion processes have been investigated as separate, but not as the whole process.

In recent years the study of entrepreneurial spinoffs has focused on how knowledge spillover leads to new knowledge and entrepreneurial activity. This study aims to explore the effect of a founder’s knowledge inherited from an incumbent parent company in the formation of a spinoff in the ICT sector. As a theoretical framework, the study uses An Absorptive Capacity Theory of Knowledge Spillover Entrepreneurship (Qian and Acs, 2013). Using a qualitative approach through interviews with the founder of the spinoff, this study aims to strengthen the empirical validity of these theories in a single setting. The proposed findings are strongly in line with the theory, but a certain aspect considering the help from a parent company proposes a possibility to modify the framework into a particularized framework that can be implicated to various spinoffs globally. Thus, the findings suggest that entrepreneurial activity deriving through absorptive capacity and inherited knowledge is affected by the contributions from the parent company.

This paper investigates IT value creation in transition and developed economies in Central and Eastern Europe. Using absorptive capacity theory and data envelopment analysis, we view business process transformation in ERP adoption as an economic production process. Data analysis suggests that the "sum of history" shapes adoption performance of firms, meaning that transition economies may suffer from less developed absorptive capacities in regard to IT and therefore face a greater challenge in ERP utilisation.

Over the past two decades, the literature on Absorptive Capacity (AC) research has been burgeoning with enormous empirical and theoretical contributions to the field. Yet, there is not much advancement in understanding the internal dynamics of AC and the concept remains a black box in a large body of research. This study aims at contributing to this body of knowledge by examining the development of AC throughout the lifecycle of R&D consortia. In particular, it examines the pre-conditions of AC across its three dimensions corresponding with the phases of consortia: exploratory, transformative and exploitative learning, and investigates the role of disciplinary, organisational, and intra-organisational boundaries in the development of AC.Utilising a case study research strategy, the thesis analyses AC in three R&D consortia in the alternative materials, pharmaceuticals, and aerospace industries and embraces qualitative methods with interviews and documents as its main sources of data. The collected data is analysed through template analysis technique assisted by the NVivo 8 software package. The theoretical contributions of the thesis are fourfold. First, findings indicate that AC is not an exclusively organisational or dyadic capability, but a three-level concept unfolding at the consortium, interface (between consortia and organisations), and organisational levels, and in exploratory, transformative and exploitative phases throughout the consortium lifetime. On that basis, a model for AC in R&D consortia is developed and its underlying learning mechanisms and conditions across levels and phases are discussed in detail. Second, the thesis contends that the development of a shared space which provides the opportunities for participation and development of shared meaning across organisational and disciplinary boundaries in R&D consortia serves a critical role in the development of AC. The characteristics of the shared space and the conditions for its development are specified. Third, by integrating adaptation mechanisms to the formulation of AC, the thesis contributes to understanding of AC as a dynamic capability-a higher order capability to change operating routines and processes. This finding feeds into the argument that AC is both path-dependent, by storing knowledge in routines, processes and artefacts through exploitative learning, and path-breaking, by modifying and changing prevailing processes and structures through exploratory and transformative learning. Finally, the thesis argues that understanding learning in R&D consortia necessitates taking into consideration the effects of disciplinary and organisational boundaries simultaneously. It is argued that organisational boundaries can influence the transfer of knowledge even within disciplinary domains, which challenges the excessive focus of practice-based research on disciplinary boundaries in cross-disciplinary collaborations, calling for further exploration of the role of organisational boundaries within a given disciplinary domain. These theoretical contributions are accompanied by a set of managerial implications for the formation and governance of R&D consortia, as well as policy implications for evaluation of policy interventions in collaborative research schemes.

This thesis investigates conditions under which the activities of multinational enterprises (MNEs) impact upon innovation performance in host-country firms. Three specific sub-questions are addressed: 1) Do MNE subsidiary characteristics influence FDI spillovers on host-country firms? 2) Does the external technological environment in individual industries influence spillover effects? 3) Do such technology spillovers follow a linear relation with the scale of FDI? Individual empirical analyses, using firm-level data extracted from two waves (2002 and 2005) of the Korean Innovation Survey (KIS) in the Republic of Korea (South Korea), are used to examine these questions. The first finding is that FDI spillovers vary depending on the subsidiary’s heterogeneous role. In this regard, we build on recent theoretical contributions made by the network-based view of MNEs, distinguishing heterogeneous subsidiary roles into either competence-creating (CC) or competence-exploiting (CE). Our results show that CC subsidiaries generate negative horizontal and positive backward spillovers, but no forward spillovers. Against this, CE subsidiaries generate positive horizontal and forward spillovers and negative backward spillovers. The second finding concerns the moderating role assumed by the type of business environment in the host country during foreign entry, especially in terms of environment velocity. We build on strategic management literature that the behaviour and performance of a firm is influenced by environment velocity, finding that environment velocity affects backward (negatively) and forward spillovers (positively), but not horizontal spillovers. The third finding concerns non-linear (linear) impacts of FDI spillover across different scales of FDI in a sector, building on existing studies predicting a changing marginal effect of horizontal spillovers. We took this a step further by comparing horizontal spillovers on local rivals and vertical spillovers on local partners, either suppliers or clients. The key contributions are two-fold: firstly, this thesis proposes revising implicit assumptions in the extant literature by identifying conditions of FDI spillovers concerning subsidiary heterogeneity and business environment type, and also by confirming the non-linear effect of horizontal and backward FDI spillovers. Secondly, it provides a glimpse of FDI spillovers in a technologically capable host country in East Asia. The findings stress various implications, including the usefulness of international business theories for assessing the role of MNE activities in host economies.

Knowledge management has become one of the most important trends in business, yet many knowledge management initiatives fail. To understand the success and failure of knowledge management, firms must identify and assess the organizational capabilities required for the effort to prosper, which is the focus of this study. Literature has offered important theoretical grounding for this study with regard to organizational capability as a predictor of knowledge management effectiveness, but empirical examination is lacking. The organizational capabilities have been identified as knowledge infrastructure capability (consisting of cultural, structural, and technological) and knowledge process capability (consisting of knowledge acquisition, conversion, application, and protection). The research model was adopted from Gold, Malhotra, and Segars (2001). This research broke new ground in the field of knowledge management by examining the relationships between knowledge infrastructure capability, knowledge process capability, and organizational effectiveness from the dual perspective of the team (within business units) in contrast to the organization (across business units). Organizations develop knowledge infrastructure to drive desired behaviors, yet knowledge workers develop processes to circumvent the organization's infrastructure (cultural and structural barriers). This may contribute to the problem of knowledge management failure. However, the relationships between knowledge infrastructure and knowledge processes have not been empirically examined, until this study. In addition, most knowledge management research is conducted at the organization level, yet most knowledge management implementation occurs at the team level (project teams, business units, social groups). To help bridge the gaps between theory and practice, this study aligned the unit of analysis more closely with the practitioners' level of implementation. Using only the organization as the unit of analysis would provide little guidance for business leaders in how they can influence the success of knowledge management programs, and it would present an incomplete picture when assessing the relationships between organizational capabilities and knowledge management effectiveness. The organization perspective helps with generalizability of this study, while the team perspective leads to results of a more informative and prescriptive nature for practitioners. Because the field of knowledge management is driven by practical need, this study offers many important managerial implications. Data was collected from several business units of a Fortune 100 multinational firm, and assessed using Structural Equation Modeling. The structural models were developed to test the hypothesized relationships and answer the research questions. As a result, this research provides empirical evidence that knowledge management capabilities are a contributing factor of organizational effectiveness. In addition, it can be concluded that firms with superior absorptive capacity and knowledge integration processes will improve their knowledge management capability. The results of this study include the findings that knowledge infrastructure drives knowledge processes, that organization-level knowledge processes drive team-level knowledge processes, and that knowledge protection is seen as a corporate responsibility rather than a team or individual responsibility. Overall, the findings conform to the literature and lend credibility to Gold et al.'s (2001) theory that effective knowledge management, as measured by its impact on organizational performance, is dependent on the firm's knowledge infrastructure capability and knowledge process capability.

Esta tese tem como objetivo principal verificar a influência do Capital Intelectual na Capacidade Absortiva das empresas, bem como da Capacidade Absortiva (ACAP) na inovação. O argumento teórico desta tese tem como base a Visão Baseada em Recursos, onde pressupõe-se que conjuntos de recursos intangíveis, como o Capital Intelectual, são mobilizados pelas firmas através de capacidades dinâmicas, como a Capacidade Absortiva do conhecimento, levando as empresas a resultados, tais como inovação de produtos. O estudo justifica-se pelas contribuições teóricas, metodológicas e práticas que pretende aportar para as áreas de gestão do conhecimento e inovação, permitindo compreender melhor os conceitos, bem como as interrelações entre eles. Inicialmente realizou-se estudo exploratório com 12 empresas, a partir de uma abordagem qualitativa, visando ampliar os conhecimentos sobre o ambiente pesquisado e proporcionar uma estruturação mais robusta do questionário. Posteriormente, o estudo quantitativo abrangeu 500 indústrias gaúchas de portes, intensidades tecnológicas e setores variados. A partir do método de modelagem de equações estruturais, o exame dos índices de ajustamento e sua significância estatística confirmaram a validade de todos os construtos e do modelo. Também serviu para a sustentação ou refutação das hipóteses do estudo. A partir das evidências, pode-se concluir que o Capital Intelectual influencia a Capacidade Absortiva, mas os elementos que o compõe refletem de modo diferente nas dimensões da ACAP. As capacidades de Aquisição, Assimilação e Exploração do conhecimento são influenciadas de forma mais contundente pelo Capital Organizacional, seguido pelo Capital Humano. A capacidade de Transformação do conhecimento é influenciada de forma equilibrada pelo Capital Organizacional e Humano, e de forma mais moderada pelo Capital Social. Por sua vez, a Capacidade Absortiva influencia a inovação, sendo que cada dimensão impacta de modo diverso. Aquisição e Exploração do conhecimento influenciam de modo mais intenso, e Transformação do conhecimento de forma mais moderada. A validação dos construtos apresenta-se como contribuição relevante, pois demonstra empiricamente a validade dos conceitos teóricos e apresenta avanços metodológicos para a mensuração dos mesmos a partir do desenvolvimento de escalas e de um modelo integrado, servindo a acadêmicos e gestores. Especificamente para o setor industrial, esta pesquisa contribui para traçar um perfil do desenvolvimento de seus recursos intangíveis, das capacidades relacionadas ao conhecimento, de suas atividades de pesquisa e desenvolvimento, bem como dos resultados relacionados à inovação. Esta caracterização pode servir de parâmetro de comparação tanto para as empresas, como para os gestores públicos definirem políticas de incentivo à inovação. Novas pesquisas em diferentes setores e países poderão aprofundar as relações entre estes construtos, bem como incluir fatores externos e a relação específica com inovação incremental e radical. / This thesis aims to investigate the influence of Intellectual Capital on Absorptive Capacity of firms, as well as the influence of Absorptive Capacity on innovation. The theoretical argument of this thesis is based on the Resource Based View, which assumes that sets of intangible assets such as Intellectual Capital are mobilized by firms through dynamic capabilities such as knowledge Absorptive Capacity, leading to results such as product innovation. The study is justified by theoretical, methodological and practices in the areas of knowledge management and innovation, enabling a better understanding of concepts, as well as the interrelationships between them. Using the qualitative approach, an exploratory study was initially performed with 12 companies aiming to expand the knowledge about the environment researched and to provide a more robust structure to the questionnaire. Subsequently, the quantitative study covered 500 industries in southern Brazil of different sizes, sectors and technological intensities. Using the method of structural equation modeling, the examination of adjustment indexes and statistical significance confirmed the validity of all the constructs and model. It also served to support or refute the hypotheses of the study. Given the evidences, it can be concluded that the Intellectual Capital influences Absorptive Capacity, but the elements that compose the Intellectual Capital reflect differently on the dimensions of ACAP. The capabilities of Acquisition, Assimilation and Exploitation of knowledge are influenced more decisively by Organizational Capital, followed by Human Capital. The ability of Transformation of knowledge is influenced evenly by Organizational and Human Capital, and more moderately by Social Capital. In turn, the Absorptive Capacity influences innovation, and each of its dimension has a different impact. Knowledge Acquisition and Exploitation have a more intense influence, and knowledge Transformation has a moderate one. The validation of the constructs is presented as a relevant contribution, it empirically demonstrates the validity of the theoretical concepts and presents methodological advances in its measurement, from scales and development of an integrated model, serving to academics and managers. Primarily for the industrial sector, this research helps to draw a profile of the development of its intangible assets, related to the knowledge of their research and development, as well as results related to innovation capabilities. This characterization can serve as a benchmark both for businesses and for public administrators helping them to define policies to encourage innovation. New studies in different sectors and countries may deepen relations between these constructs, and include external factors and specific relationship to incremental and radical innovation.