Do conhecimento à inovação em tempos de crise

Abstract

Innovation occurs when knowledge about unmet customer needs intersects with knowledge about technological solutions. Both types of knowledge are often located outside the company and need to be absorbed more quickly, so that innovation happens in times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Although research on absorptive capacity at the firm level is extensive and consolidated, individual absorptive capacity has been neglected, thus requiring new considerations about its behavioral antecedents and effects for innovation. In this context, an answer was sought to the following research question: to what extent do individuals' characteristics (motivation and cognition) influence the individual ability to recognize and assimilate external knowledge and, subsequently, integrate it into internal knowledge, through transformation and exploration, improving, finally, innovative individual performance in times of crisis? The overall objective of this project was to examine the relation between individuals' characteristics (motivation and cognition), individual absorptive capacity and individual innovative performance. Data were collected through a survey, with statements of multiple choices extracted from validated scales. A structural model on absorptive capacity at the individual level was standard and empirically tested, investigating its antecedents and its impact on innovative individual performance. The findings demonstrated a positive relation between the individual absorptive capacity in times of crisis and the precedent intrinsic motivation, dissociative cognitive style, and associative cognitive style. Specifically, the most significant predictor of individual absorptive capacity in times of crisis was found to be dissociative cognitive style. It was also found that the level of extrinsic motivation had no effect when analyzed in relation to the level of individual absorptive capacity in times of crisis. Finally, the findings found a positive relationship between the consequence of individual absorptive capacity and innovative individual performance, however, the crisis context variable did not exert a moderating effect on this relation. Thus, the present study contributed to the academic thinking emerging from the microfoundations of dynamic capabilities, the theory of self-determination as an antecedent, and individual innovative performance as consequence of individual absorptive capacity.