A new series of seminars in the Innovation Forum
of the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation
Absorptive Capacity - A Key Factor for Innovation Capacity

 
                                                                           (Photos: Sean Sullivan

The 4th Innovation Forum
Innovation Source External Knowledge -
The Role of Absorptive Capacity

Scientific direction: Prof. Georg Schreyoegg
Institute for Management at the Free University, Berlin
February 22nd 2010

Report

Theory in the feasability-test

The 4th Innovation Forum "Innovation Source External Knowledge - The Role of Absorptive Capacity", on February 22nd in Berlin

What does "absorptive capacity" mean? Which practices does the absorptive capacity of corporations comprise? And which methods have proven themselves to be especially successful in practice?
Scientists from the Institute for Management at the Free University in Berlin and managers as well as employees of the Daimler Company reflected on these questions in the - now - 4th Innovation Forum.

An established format with new topics

The Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation's series of Innovation Forums offers a platform for a dialogue between innovative research and lived practice in business enterprises. With it, the foundation has established a new format for conferences, in which the exchange of viewpoints stands in the center of interest. In keeping with the seminar series' keynote theme, "Innovation and Innovating as a Basic Entrepreneurial Responsibility", scientists discuss here their new ideas and the results of innovation- and development research with personnel from the Daimler Company.

In the audience: Professor Eckard Minx, President of the foundation's Executive Board (left).

Following up on the successful initial seminar series, "Technological and Strategic Paths", the foundation continues the Innovation Forums with the subject "Absorptive Capacity - A Key Factor for Innovation Capability". This time, the importance of external expertise and a corporation's ability to take up other people's knowledge and to make profitable use of it stood in the focus.

Absorptive Capacity - A Key Factor for Innovation Capability

If a company wants to be innovative today and to hold its own on the market in the long run, the ability to absorb expertise is a pivotal prerequisite for success. "But innovation begins in our heads", says Professor Eckard Minx, the President of the foundation's Executive Board at the opening. If a company wants to be innovative, "managers have to be daring today. There is a need for more openness and enthusiasm for innovation".

You only see what you know

In the midst of minimalistic works of modern art in Daimler Contemporary, Professor Georg Schreyoegg, the Innovation Forum's scientific chairman, delivered the introductory lecture into "The Concept and Factors for the Success of Absorptive Capacity".

Science and art: Professor Georg Schreyoegg during his introductory lecture.

His contribution described the theoretical foundations of absorptive capacity - illustrated by numerous examples from corporate practice. The way out of classical Closed Innovation, with the company's own invention as the ideal, to absorptive capacity requires open organizational cultures, transboundary units, and overlapping structures between functional areas within the company - was the contribution's central message.

Moderator Thomas Waschke from the Society and Technology Research Group at the Daimler Company.

How such open forms of organization could be realized in corporate practice, and which potentials, but also hindrances there are in business enterprises, were the issues in intensive Round Table discussions following the lecture. Moderator duos - consisting respectively of a representative from the Society and Technology Research Group at the Daimler Company and a young scientist from the Free University in Berlin - moderated the discussions in small groups. Here, not only the theory of absorptive capacity was subjected to a critical practicability-test, the prerequisites for its success and the pitfalls connected with increasingly open corporate boundaries in practice were also discussed.

He also moderated a Round Table: Harald Preissler from the Daimler Company's research group.

Informal Networking - the recipe for success

The successful absorption of knowledge can be realized by efficient network management. This was the result of talks on "lived" research and development in corporations, as well as of the contributions in discussions in the World Café-groups. The relaxed atmosphere of a café, with numerous "contacts" and conversations among the participants, and, last but not least, the invitation to a creative documentation of their thoughts (see the photo below) brought interesting ideas and imaginative proposals for solutions to light. In the sense of Open Innovation, it is a matter of including customers and partners in the innovation process already at an early stage, and, internally, of concentrating ideas and the competence for their realization in multi-functional project teams.

Moderator Dr. Frank Lerch from the Free University Berlin, and Professor Martina Eberl, HWR Berlin, in a World Café-discussion.

Dance - a permanent innovation?

The evening lecture then carried the participants off into a completely different world - that of modern dance. In an interactive and dynamic contribution, Ludger Orlok, curator and art director at the Tanzfabrik (Dance Factory) Berlin, pointed out parallels between dance as an art form and the demands on innovative management in corporations.

Ludger Orlok, curator and art director at the Tanzfabrik (Dance Factory) Berlin, held the evening lecture on dance and management.

The objectives of both are similar: continuous reflection of what is happening, not (only) the production of an invariable result, and leaving beaten tracks to create new options for motion and action.

The art collection's aura inspired the World Café: Table Art during the seminar.

To be continued ...
... under the title of "Successful Management of Absorptive Capacity" on September 27th 2010 in Berlin

Further information on the seminar series "Innovation Forum" will be gladly provided by Anja Mante, (Coordination) under:
anja.mante@fu-berlin.de.

Subject: Absorptive Capacity

In the increasingly unstable and fast-moving times which business enterprises are experiencing today, access to sources of knowledge beyond the limits of one's own company and the integration of external know-how into the organization are of growing importance for corporate success. The key factor is the company's absorptive capacity. It means the ability to assimilate knowledge about technologies and markets for the development of new technologies and products from the environs, and to use it successfully.

If a corporation has a high absorptive capacity in the form of the appropriate routines for assimilating knowledge, it is in a position to make use of comprehensive external information. Various inhibiting factors, however - such as selective filters, corporate culture, and path dependency - can strongly reduce a company's absorptive capacity.

Responsible for the Innovation Forum's scientific soundness: Professor Georg Schreyoegg, economist at the Free University, Berlin.

Thus far the theory. But how does it work in practice? How do business enterprises identify relevant information and knowledge in their environs? How are processes and structures for knowledge assimilation organized in corporate practice? Which different practices have been established? How can companies identify inhibiting factors and influence them strategically?

Seminar series Absorptive Capacity -
A Key Factor for Innovation Capacity

These questions - at the interface between theoretical science and lived practice - will be investigated in the two-part seminar series "Absorptive Capacity -
A Key Factor for Innovation Capacity". With it, the Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz Foundation continues the series of Innovation Forums which began in 2008 on the subject of "Technological and Strategic Paths". In cooperation with the Daimler Company and the Institute for Management at the Free University, Berlin, two Innovation Forums will take place this year.

The 4th Innovation Forum:
Innovation Source External Knowledge -
The Role of Absorptive Capacity
On February 22nd 2010
Scientific direction: Prof. Georg Schreyoegg
Institute for Management at the Free University, Berlin

The first part of the seminar series, entitled "Innovation Source External Knowledge - The Role of Absorptive Capacity", is dedicated to introducing the subject matter and to analyzing factors of absorptive capacity's success for businesses.

The questions: What does absorptive capacity mean? Which practices does the absorptive capacity of corporations comprise? Which methods and practices of knowledge assimilation are employed successfully in practice? stand in the center of attention.

The introductory seminar of a series which will comprise a total of three sessions was concerned with forms of path-dependence in practice.

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