Examining Organizational Absorptive Capacity Construct: A Validation Study in the School Context

The purpose of this study was to develop a new measure for the absorptive capacity (ACAP) construct, specifically in the educational system. Exploration of this construct involved developing, field testing, and validating an ACAP-measuring instrument, followed by exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses of the items to examine factorial validity. Two samples were derived to examine the construct’s validity. The developed scale was correlated with other established work-related constructs (e.g., teacher’s affective commitment). It was found that the four ACAP dimensions underlying potential (acquisition and assimilation) and realized (transformation and exploitation) ACAP are not only theoretically but also empirically distinguishable.