The Impact of Corporate Culture on the Absorptive Capacity and Innovative Capacity of Companies

Introduction

In recent years, academics and company managers have become increasingly interested in corporate culture. It has thus become one of the most widely-developed fields of research in recent years. Despite all this, and although senior management increasingly considers the analysis and diagnosis of corporate culture to be one of the fundamental work variables, its special characteristics and intangible nature make it difficult to observe and study. In an attempt to fill this gap, we propose an analysis of corporate culture which will allow a closer look at this field. We intend to show how corporate culture allows the development of other business capacities, including absorptive capacity, and to confirm its influence on companies' innovative capacity.

In order to complete the aim of the study we have researched 53 large Spanish companies, examining the overall effect of corporate culture on absorptive capacity and the level of companies' incremental and radical innovation. We intend to make the following contributions to scientific literature:

• 1.

  Verifying the influence of corporate culture on companies' absorptive and innovative capacity;

• 2.

  Verifying the relationship of the different components of absorptive capacity with companies' innovative capacity;

• 3.

  Finally, we intend to offer a prescriptive contribution which will be of use to company managers who intend to manage their organisation in terms of capacities.