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Leadership and Policy in Schools
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Examining Organizational Absorptive Capacity

Construct: A Validation Study in the School
Context
Rima’a Da’as & Mowafaq Qadach
To cite this article: Rima’a Da’as & Mowafaq Qadach (2019): Examining Organizational
Absorptive Capacity Construct: A Validation Study in the School Context, Leadership and Policy in
Schools, DOI: 10.1080/15700763.2018.1554155
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LEADERSHIP AND POLICY IN SCHOOLS
https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2018.1554155
Examining Organizational Absorptive Capacity Construct:

A Validation Study in the School Context
Rima’a Da’asa and Mowafaq Qadachb
a
Department of Education, AL-Qasemi, Academic College of Education, Baqa- Elgharbia, Israel; bDepartment of
Education, Ono Academic College, Ono, Israel
ABSTRACT
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 ana-
lyses 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 commit-
ment). 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.
In recent years, a number of terms have been utilized to characterize an organization’s ability to
acquire new knowledge: learning organizations (e.g., Berson, Da’as, & Waldman, 2015; Senge, 1990),
knowledge creation (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995), and knowledge management (Davenport & Prusak,
1998). All of these concepts are helpful in understanding some of the mechanisms associated with
the notion of “organizational learning” (Jones & Craven, 2001). Organizational learning is a critical
component in achieving school effectiveness, and schools that function as learning organizations
perform better than those that do not (e.g., Mulford & Silins, 2011). Such schools develop learning
processes, strategies, and structures that strengthen their capacity to react effectively to change,
thereby continuing to function efficiently even in uncertain and dynamic environments (Fauske &
Raybould, 2005; Louis, 2006).
To deal with the dynamic and turbulence of the organizational environment, schools must focus
their attention on knowledge as a dominant source of competitive advantage (e.g., Zuckerman,
Campbell Wilcox, Schiller, & Durand, 2018). Thus, organizations need to recognize new external
knowledge, assimilate it, and apply it to organizational processes (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990;
Volberda, Foss, & Lyles, 2010). This ability is referred to as absorptive capacity (ACAP) (Cohen
& Levinthal, 1990), and is a prevalent notion in strategy and organizational research. According to
Cohen and Levinthal (1990), an organization’s ACAP does not simply depend on the organiza-
tion’s direct interface with the external environment; it also relies on the transfer of knowledge
across and within subunits and on the capacity to apply that knowledge. That is to say, ACAP is an
organizational process (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990; Ferreras Méndez, Sanz Valle, & Alegre, 2018;
Flor & Oltra, 2013) that depends on the organizational context and practices. Specifically, the
notion of ACAP draws attention to the need to appreciate and acquire new knowledge from the
external environment, while simultaneously focusing on internal processes of learning from past
experience and current actions (Easterby-Smith, Graça, Antonacopoulou, & Ferdinand, 2008).
A high ACAP depicts the school’s high ability to exploit and transform this knowledge from
CONTACT Rima’a Da’as rimaajd@gmail.com Department of Education, AL-Qasemi, Academic College of Education,
Nazareth, Israel
© 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 R. DA’AS AND M. QADACH
teachers who acquire it from external resources and assimilate it to the school process, promoting
the school’s high effectiveness (Zuckerman et al., 2018).
Since Cohen and Levinthal (1989), Cohen & Levinthal (1990) published their work on ACAP,
much empirical and theoretical work has been devoted to analyzing the ACAP of organizations, and
conceptualizing the concept (e.g., Camisón & Forés, 2010; Flatten, Engelen, Zahra, & Brettel, 2011;
Jansen, Van Den Bosch, & Volberda, 2005; Roberts, Galluch, Dinger, & Grover, 2012; Umrani,
Ahmed, & Memon, 2015; Zahra & George, 2002). However, little research has been performed in the
framework of educational systems (Zinkeviciene, 2004; Zuckerman et al., 2018). The aim of this
study was to develop and field test an instrument designed to measure ACAP in the school context,
and determine its validity and reliability. Despite growing interest in this topic, few have captured
the richness and multidimensionality of the concept (i.e., Flatten et al., 2011; Jansen et al., 2005).
Moreover, we could not find any research that designed or validated a measure of ACAP specifically
for the field of education (school context).
Research in the latter domain has emphasized the importance of managing knowledge derived
from external sources, using qualitative research (e.g., Zuckerman et al., 2018). Zuckerman et al.
(2018) used a cross-case analysis to examine leadership strategies (i.e., buffering, bridging, and
brokering, mechanisms and processes of shared goal setting, ongoing curriculum revision) and
coherence in allowing leaders and educators to assimilate, transform, and create new knowledge in
ways that provide ACAP and allow for selective implementation of disruptive innovations.
Recent research has focused on the role of ACAP in innovation (Flatten et al., 2011; Kang & Lee,
2017; Kostopoulos, Papalexandris, Papachroni, & Ioannou, 2011; Tsai, 2001), intraorganizational
knowledge transfer (Gupta & Govindarajan, 2000; Saraf, Liang, Xue, & Hu, 2013; Szulanski, 1996),
business performance (Khan et al., 2017; Lane, Salk, & Lyles, 2001; Tsai, 2001), organizational
competitive advantage (Cohen & Levinthal, 1989, 1990; Prahalad & Hamel, 1990; Zobel, 2017),
flexibility (Sterman, 2001), and interorganizational learning (Lane & Lubatkin, 1998; Lane et al.,
2001; Saraf et al., 2013). Developing a measure for ACAP with tested validity, richness, and multi-
dimensionality in the educational field is expected to have important theoretical and applied
implications for school learning, effectiveness, and innovation. Furthermore, for schools, and for
school leaders who have a significant role in improving school outcomes such as students’ achieve-
ments (Hallinger, 2011), ACAP may provide a means to buffer external policy changes by providing
opportunities to assimilate and transform new knowledge into existing practices, rather than
replacing them with standardized ones (Zuckerman et al., 2018).
Conceptual framework
ACAP is clearly related to organizational learning (Lane, Koka, & Pathak, 2006). Researchers have argued
that the notion of ACAP is similar to the feed-forward (exploration of new idea) and feedback learning
(exploitation of ideas that come from higher levels in the organization) processes of an organization
(Crossan, Lane, & White, 1999; Sun & Anderson, 2010; Vera & Crossan, 2004). Following a process-
based view, Lane et al. (2006) positioned ACAP within an expanded exploration/exploitation learning
framework, and related three ACAP processes (identify, assimilate, and apply external knowledge) to
three learning processes (exploratory, transformative, and exploitative learning). Exploratory learning is
used to recognize and understand new external knowledge. Transformative learning combines new and
existing knowledge, thereby allowing organizations to effectively assimilate valuable external knowledge.
Finally, exploitative learning consists of applying the assimilated external knowledge.
Roberts et al. (2012) offered a distinction between ACAP and organizational learning, in three
dimensions: construct versus concept; active versus passive; external versus internal. ACAP is consid-
ered to be a construct with well-defined assumptions and boundary conditions, and organizations must
actively increase their ACAP and focus on the role of external knowledge. On the other hand,
organizational learning is a broad concept that encompasses a variety of processes and constructs—
organizations can learn actively or passively—and spans both internal and external knowledge.
LEADERSHIP AND POLICY IN SCHOOLS 3
Despite the above differences between ACAP and organizational learning, we cannot isolate ACAP
from organizational learning because when schools acquire and utilize ACAP effectively, they become
“knowledge-intensive organizations,” promoting the sharing of expertise both internally and externally,
and promoting open discussion among decentralized groups throughout the organization (Starbuck,
1992). Social processing of information, an inherently collective activity, occurs rarely if at all in most
schools (Berson et al., 2015). For internal knowledge in schools to become integrated with external
knowledge, specifically with the organizational learning processes, external knowledge must be trans-
formed and exploited in these processes to increase performance (Roberts et al., 2012).
Finally, learning is integrated from the individual to the team to school processes (Berson et al., 2015;
Marks & Louis, 1999; Vera & Crossan, 2004), thereby improving school performance (e.g., Berson et al.,
2015). Fauske and Raybould (2005) highlight the importance of relating individual learning to learning in
and by the organization, because shared learning mechanisms are similar to individual learning mechanisms
and routines for action, but are expressed at the organizational level as interpretive and system-structural
elements. This study adopts ACAP as an organizational construct, following previous researchers’ sugges-
tion (e.g., Leal-Rodríguez, Roldán, Ariza-Montes, & Leal-Millán, 2014). Roberts et al. (2012) argued that
researchers should consider ACAP to be a collective construct. In this regard, Lipshitz, Popper, and
Friedman (2002) argued that organizations have cognitive systems that enable them to acquire, perceive,
and interpret information in a manner that is similar, albeit not identical, to the individual learning process.
These cognitive systems can be perceived through organizational routines, which resemble individuals’
cognitive procedural memories (Cohen & Bacdayan, 1996).
Definition of absorptive capacity

ACAP is an organization’s ability to “identify, assimilate and exploit knowledge from the environ-
ment” (Cohen & Levinthal, 1989, p. 569). ACAP (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990) has recently been
recognized as a specific type of organizational learning (e.g., Camisón & Forés, 2010; Lane et al.,
2006Saraf et al., 2013; Sun & Anderson, 2010, 2012; Zahra & George, 2002), and refers to an
organization’s relationship with external knowledge (Sun & Anderson, 2010).
We adopted Zahra and George’s (2002) conceptualization of ACAP, defined as a series of
routines and organizational processes through which organizations acquire, assimilate, trans-
form, and exploit knowledge to create a competitive advantage. ACAP is a dynamic capacity that
allows organizations to create value and to gain and sustain a competitive advantage through the
management of external knowledge (Camisón & Forés, 2010; Ferreras Méndez et al., 2018;
Flatten, Adams, & Brettel, 2015; Flor & Oltra, 2013; Lane et al., 2006; Zahra & George, 2002).
Viewing ACAP as a dynamic capability also suggests that it can be changed through managerial
actions that redefine and exploit the organization’s knowledge-based assets (Floyd & Lane, 2000).
Thus, given the greater availability of external knowledge, a dynamic capability that influences
an organization’s ability to target, absorb, and deploy the external knowledge necessary to feed
the internal innovation process becomes a crucial source of competitive advantage (e.g.,
Cassiman & Veugelers, 2002). Organizations (e.g., schools) endowed with higher levels of
ACAP will be able to extract greater benefits from external knowledge, and therefore outperform
rivals in their innovation activity (Tsai, 2002), for example, acquiring new strategic methods and
pedagogical reference material that improve class instruction and students’ achievements; this
innovation confers a competitive advantage over other schools.
Dimensions of absorptive capacity

In Cohen and Levinthal’s (1990) definition, three organizational processes conforming to ACAP can be
identified: identification, assimilation, and exploitation of external knowledge. Zahra and George (2002)
point out four processes of ACAP: acquisition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation of external
knowledge. Thus, these researchers introduced the acquisition phase instead of Cohen and Levinthal’s
(1990) identification phase and inserted a transformation phase between those of assimilation and
exploitation.
Zahra and George (2002) suggested that ACAP exists as two subsets of potential and realized
ACAP. Potential capacity (PACAP) comprises knowledge acquisition and assimilation capabilities,
and realized capacity (RACAP) centers on knowledge transformation and exploitation (Flatten et al.,
2011; Zahra & George, 2002) (see Table 1).
Acquisition refers to an organization’s ability to identify and acquire externally generated knowl-
edge that is critical to its operations (Daspit, Ramachandran, & D’Souza, 2014; Zahra & George,
2002). The ability to acquire knowledge depends on the intensity, speed, and direction of the
organizational efforts to identify and collect information (Zahra & George, 2002), which can
determine the organization’s knowledge quality: the larger the effort, the faster the organization
can construct the required abilities (Kim, 1997).
Assimilation refers to the organization’s routines and processes that allow it to analyze, process,
interpret, and understand information acquired from external sources (Cohen & Levinthal, 1990;
Kim, 1997). Kim (1997) indicated that the assimilation process is influenced by the informal
knowledge that characterizes the organization (e.g., social networks). This dimension of ACAP
deals with individuals’ interpretation and understanding of knowledge. This phase of ACAP applies
to the individual level more than the collective one. Certainly, knowledge assimilation describes the
capacity to understand new external knowledge and link it with a prior knowledge base (Leal-Rodr
íguez et al., 2014).
Transformation assesses how well an organization facilitates the recognition of opportunities and
consequences in new external knowledge for existing operations, structures, and strategies (Zahra &
George, 2002). Transformation changes the character of knowledge through “bisociation,” which
occurs when a situation or idea is perceived in “two self-consistent but incompatible frames of
reference” (Koestler, 1989, p. 35). Thus, an organization’s ability to recognize two apparently
incongruous sets of information and then combine them to arrive at a new scheme represents its
transformation ability. According to Zahra and George (2002, p. 190), this dimension “denotes
a firm’s capability to develop and refine the routines that facilitate combining existing knowledge
and the newly acquired and assimilated knowledge.”
Finally, exploitation reflects the organization’s ability to exploit, collect, and integrate new
external knowledge into its activities and operations (Tiemessen, Lane, Crossan, & Inkpen, 1997;
Zahra & George, 2002). Exploitation denotes an organization’s capacity to improve, expand, and use
its existing routines, competencies, and technologies to create something new based on the “trans-
formed” knowledge (Del Carmen Haro-Domínguez, Arias-Aranda, Lloréns-Montes, & Moreno,
2007; Flatten et al., 2011). The outcomes are persistent creation of new goods, knowledge, and
organizational forms (Spender, 1996).
Table 1 presents the different definitions of these dimensions with examples from the education
context.
These four dimensions play different roles; taken together, they explain how ACAP can influence
organizational outcomes (Zahra & George, 2002). According to Zahra and George (2002), the two
components (PACAP: acquisition and assimilation, and RACAP: transformation and exploitation)
have separate but complementary roles. Organizations cannot apply external knowledge without
acquiring it. Similarly, certain organizations may develop the ability to acquire and assimilate
external knowledge, but are not able to transform and apply that knowledge, or in other words, to
turn it into a competitive advantage (e.g., Camisón & Forés, 2010).
In the school setting, for example, Honig (2003) suggested that organizational learning includes
two processes: searching for information outside of the organization and using it within the
organization’s norms concerning the behavior of organization members as individuals and the
organization as a collective. Zinkeviciene (2004) stated that the relationship between ACAP and
the environment can be internal or external. Internal ACAP means striving to identify the best
pedagogical experience inside the organization (p. 13), such as cultures of teacher collaborations.
Table 1. Dimensions of absorptive capacity (ACAP).

Dimensions Definition Examples
Acquisition ● Acquisition denotes an organization’s ability to ● Example: the knowledge gained from teachers’
identify and obtain relevant information from continuing academic education or previous
outside sources (Umrani et al., 2015, p. 1054). experiences
Assimilation ● Assimilation refers to an organization’s ability to ● Example: the teachers use information that they
develop processes and routines that are useful in have acquired from continuing academic studies in
analyzing, interpreting, and understanding the framework of their professional role at the
externally acquired knowledge (Flatten et al., 2011). school
● Assimilation capacity refers to an organization’s
capacity to absorb external knowledge.
● It reflects the organization’s capability of
understanding new knowledge (Daspit et al., 2014).
Transformation ● Transformation may be achieved by adding or ● Example: the knowledge gained by the teachers
eliminating knowledge, or by interpreting and from external sources contributes to the
combining existing knowledge in a different, performance of their daily work in the school
innovative way (Flatten et al., 2011; Leal-Rodríguez
et al., 2014).
● It reflects the capability to combine new and
existing knowledge (Daspit et al., 2014).
Exploitation ● Zahra and George (2002) define exploitation as “an ● Example: implementation of teachers’ acquired
organizational capability that is based on the knowledge will contribute to effective use of
routines that allow firms to refine, extend, and school resources
leverage existing competencies or to create new
ones by incorporating acquired and transformed
knowledge into its operations” (p. 190).
● It reflects the capability to create change or
refinement (Daspit et al., 2014).
External ACAP is an individual or organization’s capacity to identify useful innovation outside the
boundaries of their own organization and apply and develop it in their organization (p. 15). Such
innovations come from departments of education, partner schools, or different projects. Externally,
teachers develop their qualifications by participating in seminars, conferences, or projects. Though
external ACAP is more strongly encouraged and led by more attractive activities, innovations
stemming from collaborations with colleagues from other schools or countries should be very
carefully selected for their suitability to a particular culture.
ACAP is a dynamic capability, suggesting the capacity to alter or change—the ability to learn
from experience (such as previous school experience) (Roberts et al., 2012), in an organizational
system characterized by interactions and connections (Begun, Zimmerman, & Dooley, 2003). This is
also related to the complex adaptive systems (CAS) lens (Dooley, Corman, McPhee, & Kuhn, 2003),
which claims that organizations are complex systems comprised of many interacting components
and have the ability to self-organize, adapt, and learn from experience (Piana & Peters, 2011). Such
systems are also characterized by relationships between individuals, individuals’ relationships with
the environment, information flow, shared and individual schemes, and a state of equilibrium
between formal and informal structures (Chiva-Gomez, 2008).
More specifically, teachers absorb external knowledge, such as information about students’ needs
and behavioral changes, changes in the environment, or technological changes. Within complex
school systems, the integration of learning processes depends on interactive structures within the
organization; more specifically, this refers to teachers who interrelate with each other and with their
surroundings and are not limited in their ability to adapt their behavior, based on their experience
(prior knowledge). Thus, to effectively absorb and exploit knowledge, it is crucial to ensure the
sharing of relevant knowledge among organizational members (Spender, 1996; Vargo & Lusch,
2004). Organizations develop structures in which project teams and organizational members in
general operate in a knowledge-exchange system and learn from experience (Leal-Rodríguez et al.,
2014). Finally, it is important to note, according to the CAS view, that we did not isolate ACAP from
the general organizational learning context or organizational structure. School teachers play the role
of agents who interact and absorb knowledge from their environment to promote information flow
and knowledge sharing, shared and individual schemes, and a state of equilibrium between formal
and informal structures.
Research design
Development of the ACAP scale involved several phases: developing items based on the ACAP
literature, conducting a pilot study, employing both exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to
refine the subscales and to assess the factorial validity (with two different samples), and testing the
developed ACAP scale and a work-related construct (i.e., teacher’s affective commitment). Despite
the huge growth in the ACAP literature, certain important gaps remain, specifically in the validation
of this measure in different contexts (Flatten et al., 2011; Lane et al., 2006; Umrani et al., 2015; Van
Den Bosch, Van Wijk, & Volberda, 2003), such as the educational field. These phases are described
below.
The context of the study

This research consisted of two studies conducted in Arab schools that are part of the Israeli
educational system. Schools in general, and Israeli schools in particular, provide an opportunity to
study relatively autonomous organizations (e.g., Berson et al., 2015). Although the school functions
as an organization, the body of teachers, especially in elementary schools which tend to be smaller
than high schools, often think of themselves as a “team of teachers” (Berson et al., 2015, p. 90). This
team encompasses the entire teaching staff at the school, thus forming a collective. Most of the
school activities, such as weekly teacher forums, training sessions, and curriculum policy meetings,
involve this entire team. Its members have a common focus on organizational tasks (e.g., curriculum
building), common goals (e.g., meeting performance standards), social interaction (e.g., meetings),
task interdependence (e.g., mutual reliance on information), and boundary maintenance (e.g.,
activities reserved for team members and competition with other teaching teams) (Berson et al.,
2015).
Development of ACAP scale

Appropriate assessment scales for potential and realized ACAP, specifically in the educational
system, were not available. The following steps were taken to develop new measures for the ACAP
construct. First, we reviewed relevant literature based on the dimensions that have been defined (e.g.,
Cohen & Levinthal, 1989, 1990; Van Den Bosch et al., 2003; Zahra & George, 2002) and generated
items to tap into the domain of each construct. A draft version of the ACAP questionnaire was
devised. Next, a pilot study was completed, in which 30 teachers from four schools were asked to
point out any items that were either ambiguous or difficult to answer.
Sampled schools were drawn from a list of Israeli elementary schools. Teachers’ comments regard-
ing ACAP item clarity were evaluated, and improvements suggested by experts for this questionnaire
were incorporated (suggestions for modifying, adding, and deleting items were also considered).
Experts provided detailed comments that led to the modification of some items and the elimination
of others. Thus, items were checked for clarity, phrasing, and relevance to their respective content
domains. These steps yielded a final of the ACAP questionnaire, containing 12 items—three items for
each scale. The 12 items were measured on a 5-point scale: (1 = a little bit to 5 = a lot). Teachers were
asked: “The following questions address your school’s abilities concerning knowledge. Please rate the
extent to which your staff members engage in the abilities described in each statement.”
The items dealt with acquisition ability related to acquiring external knowledge, such as technol-
ogy (electronic means) or advanced academic, assimilation—when teachers understand and use this
knowledge in their work; transformation—when it changes their work by combining new knowledge
to existing knowledge; and exploitation—when it affects the school process to effectively use this
knowledge and create change (for a more detailed explanation, see Table 1).
Study 1: Scale refinement—Exploratory factor analysis (EFA)

EFA was conducted to map the construct domain and refine the ACAP measure. This analysis
explores the number of factors accounting for covariation between variables when there is not,
a priori, sufficient evidence to form a hypothesis about the number of factors underlying the data
(Stevens, 1996).
To explore the factor structure, 420 teachers from 80 Arab elementary schools in Israel were
randomly sampled from a list of Israeli elementary schools, and asked to respond to the 12 items of
the ACAP questionnaire. Data were collected by a research-staff member. Our teacher sample was
selected by two-stage sampling. First, schools (as a cluster) were selected randomly from a list
compiled by the education system (we also used this method for Study 2). Then, the teachers were
randomly selected from within these schools. Mean school size (number of teachers in each school)
was 30 (SD = 9.10).
Among the teachers in this sample, 61% were female, with a mean age of 35 years (SD = 6.78),
and a mean tenure at their schools of 10.43 years (SD = 7.49); 70% of the teachers had college
degrees. All participants were assured that their responses would remain anonymous. EFA of the
item matrix was performed to determine which items clustered together and which did not. For this
purpose, a principal-axis factor analysis, rotated using Kaiser’s (1958) Varimax criterion, was used to
examine the 12-item measure (as shown in Table 2).
The results showed that the 12 items of the ACAP questionnaire consisted of four factors,
explaining 61.24% of the variance. As seen in Table 1, there were four distinct clusters of items
with moderate to high reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha): (a) assimilation (three items, .875);
(b) exploitation (three items, .821); (c) transformation (three items, .832); and (d) acquisition (three
items, .710). The reliability coefficient for the questionnaire as a whole (12 items) was .89, indicating
high internal consistency. Values thus ranged from .71 to .875, higher than the standard .7 cutoff
(Nunnally, 1978), supporting the reliability of the four ACAP dimensions.
Table 2. Structure matrix for exploratory factor analysis.

Factor Loadings on Dimensions
Items Assimilation Exploitation Transformation Acquisition
We use the knowledge we have gained while performing our .848
professional duties at the school
We use the knowledge we have gained to better understand our work .834
We use the knowledge we have gained to learn more about our job .718
Implementing the knowledge we have gained contributes to effective .830
usage of school resources
The knowledge we have gained enables us to develop the school’s .806
capabilities
We can implement the knowledge we have gained in our work .658
The knowledge we have gained contributes to the performance of our .863
daily work
The knowledge we have gained has made changes in our work as .658
teachers
The knowledge we have gained is integrated in our daily work .614
We use the knowledge we have gained from advanced academic .780
studies
We use the knowledge we have gained from the internet or any other .742
electronic means
We use the knowledge we have gained from our previous experience .580
Average Variance Extracted (AVE) .643 .59 .52 .50
Composite Reliability (CR) .840 .81 .76 .75
Note. Extraction method: principal axis factoring. For clarity, only values equal or above .5 are presented. N = 80 schools.
Construct validity is generally tested by checking both its convergent and discriminant aspects
(Bollen, 1989). Convergent validity shows that the assessment relates to what it should theoretically
be related to, and therefore whether the scale relates to the items which could be correlated and
whether integrating them to obtain a general measurement is appropriate. Discriminant validity is
the degree to which two or more measurements designed to measure different theoretical constructs
are not correlated (Camisón & Forés, 2010, p. 712).
Following Fornell and Larcker (1981), we next examined the convergent validity by evaluating the
average variance extracted (AVE) of every individual latent construct, and assessed the composite
reliability (CR). Chin (1998) suggested an AVE cutoff ≥ 0.5 for each latent construct. Table 2 shows
that AVE values for each of the latent constructs are higher than this recommended cutoff.
Therefore, all four dimensions of ACAP meet the convergent validity criterion. Furthermore, a CR
> .6 is recommended (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). CR is a less biased estimate of reliability than
Chonbachs alpha (Alarcón & Sánchez, 2015).
According to Fornell and Larcker (1981), discriminant validity is confirmed when the square root
of AVE exceeds the correlation among the latent constructs. Table 3 indicates that the constructs
fulfill the discriminant validity criterion, with sufficient psychometric properties for ACAP dimen-
sions (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). All of the items have a higher loading on their corresponding
construct than the cross loadings on the other constructs in the model. The AVE for each latent
factor exceeded the respective squared correlation between factors, thus providing evidence of
discriminant validity (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
Study 2: Scale validation—Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)

A separate, new random sample was drawn from 153 Arab elementary schools in Israel, which
included 1,284 teachers. The schools were urban, suburban, and rural, representing the full socio-
economic range (and the same characteristics as the sample in Study 1), with at least eight randomly
selected teachers per school. Mean school size was 31.31 (SD = 9.40).
Among the teachers who participated in this study, 65% were female, the mean age was 37 years
(SD = 8.1), and mean tenure at their schools was nine years (SD = 7.4). Sixty-five percent of the
teachers had college degrees. All participants were assured that their responses would remain
anonymous.
Guided by the results of the exploratory factor analysis, we conducted CFA of the items
pertaining to dimensions of potential and realized ACAP to check for construct independence
(Table 4). The confirmatory procedure was performed with the structural-equation modeling soft-
ware, AMOS 20, to test the model derived from the EFA, and model fit for the CFA was evaluated
with commonly used goodness-of-fit indices: comparative fit index (CFI) and root mean square
error of approximation (RMSEA) (Byrne, 2006; Vandenberg & Lance, 2000), goodness-of-fit index
(GFI), the χ2/degrees of freedom ratio (Wheaton, Muthen, Alwin, & Summers, 1977), the Adjusted
Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI) (Bentler & Bonett, 1980), and Normed Fit Index (NFI) (Hu & Bentler,
1995). The value-of-fit indices ranges from 0 to 1, and value ≥ .90 is considered acceptable (good fit)
(Hoyle, 1995; Hu & Bentler, 1999). For RMSEA, values between 0.06 and 0.08 suggest an acceptable
fit, while values ≤ 0.05 indicate a close fit (Browne & Cudeck, 1993; Hu & Bentler, 1999).
Table 3. Fornell–Larcker coefficients for the first sample.

Dimension Acquisition Assimilation Transformation Exploitation
Acquisition .71
Assimilation .44 .80
Transformation .40 .76 .72
Exploitation .49 .59 .64 .76
Note. The correlations (** p <.01) of the latent constructs and the square root of AVE (values in bold face).
To compare the models, we used the differences between indexes, such as the CFI (Cheung &
Rensvold, 2002). For the CFI, an absolute value of .01 or smaller indicates invariance. Values
between .01 and .02 suggest that some differences may exist between the models, and values over
.02 indicate a lack of invariance, implying that the invariance hypothesis should be rejected (Cheung
& Rensvold, 2002).
Results indicated that the hypothesis that the four underlying dimensions of ACAP converge into
one common factor was unambiguously rejected (Table 4). Our four-factor model also provided
a better fit to the data than its plausible rival two-factor model. All of the fit indices of the two-factor
model showed worse fit to the data (CFI < .9) than those of the four-factor model (first and second
order models). In addition, a CFI difference test showed significantly better fit of the four-factor
(first order and second order) model compared to the two-factor model (ΔCFI > .02).
A comparison of the four-factor model (first or second order) to a three-factor model showed
a worse fit for the latter. CFI difference test confirmed that the fit of the three-factor model was
significantly worse than that of our four-factor model (ΔCFI > .02).
A four-factor model (first order and second order) fit the data moderately well, with fit indices >
.9 and RMSEA < .06 (Browne & Cudeck, 1993; Hoyle, 1995), ΔCFI between the two models (first
and second order) is 0, which means that they are equivalent in terms of matching data. Item
loadings were as proposed and were significant (p < .001).
Corresponding to these results, the second-order four-dimension ACAP model was chosen.
Compared to all other estimated models, this model shows the best fit indices (Figure 1) (GFI =
.97, RMSEA = .03, χ2/df = 1.94, AGFI = .91, NFI = .95, CFI = .98). Further, MacCallum, Wegener,
Uchino, and Fabrigar (1993) indicated that the choice between mathematically equivalent models
should be based on their theoretical meaning. In this case, we chose to maintain the second-order
four-dimension model (Figure 1), in which the items are loaded with the response factors, and these
represent a general latent variable of ACAP, as their theoretical meaning suggested by Zahra and
George (2002).
Table 5 presents operational definitions of the factors that form the final ACAP construct for
elementary schools, resulting in 12 items which are listed in descending order, according to their
strength of loadings on each factor.
Table 6 presents the range of factor loadings, descriptive statistics, alpha coefficients, and inter-
item correlations. There are four distinct clusters of items with reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s
alpha): alpha > .7. The range of inter-item correlations in the four-factor model of ACAP range
between .311 and .674, (as shown in Table 6).
ACAP and the validity variable

Finally, the study verifies the criterion validity, i.e., the degree of correspondence between a measure
and a criterion variable, and expresses the extent to which the construct behaves as theoretically
predicted in relation to other associated constructs (Bollen, 1989, p. 186). The validity can be
concurrent or predictive. This study used the former for demonstrations relating a measurement
to other criteria that were either assessed or existed simultaneously. One generally accepted means of
Table 4. Comparison of fit indices of competing ACAP models (N = 153).

Model Content GFI RMSEA χ2/df AGFI NFI CFI
One All items .84 .13 13.595 .76 .84 .85
Two Acquisition, assimilation plus exploitation (first order) .86 .11 10.31 .77 .83 .87
Two (Acquisition, assimilation plus transformation), exploitation (second order) .73 .17 13.64 .65 .70 .77
Three Acquisition, assimilation, exploitation (first order) .82 .08 5.96 .75 .81 .86
Three Acquisition, assimilation, exploitation (second order) .81 .11 5.96 .74 .80 .85
Four Acquisition, assimilation, transformation, exploitation (first order) .96 .04 1.95 .91 .95 .98
Four Acquisition, assimilation, transformation, exploitation (second order) .97 .03 1.94 .91 .95 .98
Figure 1. Four-factor model with a second-order ACAP.
Table 5. Four factors operationally defined (N = 153).

Loading in
Items per Factor Factor
Acquisition We use the knowledge we have gained from advanced academic studies .630
We use the knowledge we have gained from our previous experience .622
We use the knowledge we have gained from the internet or any other electronic means .510
Assimilation We use the knowledge we have gained while performing our professional duties at the school .836
We use the knowledge we have gained to learn more about our job .801
We use the knowledge we have gained to better understand our work .776
Transformation The knowledge we have gained has made changes in our work as teachers .785
The knowledge we have gained is integrated in our daily work .725
The knowledge we have gained contributes to the performance of our daily work .699
Exploitation We can implement the knowledge we have gained in our work .799
The knowledge we have gained enables us to develop the school’s capabilities .741
Implementing the knowledge we have gained contributes to effective usage of school .720
resources
Note. Loadings for the four-factor model are all significant (p<.001). Sample size refers to Schools.
checking concurrent validity is to look at its correlation with some objective measurements in the
survey that serve as criterion variables for a particular scale indicator (Camisón & Forés, 2010). We
chose to check the ACAP measure with teacher’s affective commitment, a work-related construct
(Schechter & Qadach, 2016). Affective commitment is more dominant than normative or continu-
ance commitment in explaining staff behavior (Cohen, 2003; Shapira & Rosenblatt, 2009) and in
predicting other important work-related concepts (Cohen, 2003), and it is better related to outcomes
Table 6. Range of factor loadings, descriptive statistics, alpha coefficients, and inter-item correlations for the four-factor ACAP
model (N = 153).
Composite Factors Range of Factor Loadings M SD Alpha Range of Inter-Item Correlations
Acquisition .510–.630 3.85 .24 .72 .370–.600
Assimilation .776–.836 4.17 .41 .85 .603–.674
Transformation .699–.785 4.18 .32 .85 .311–.655
Exploitation .720–.799 4.10 .31 .80 .419–.658
Note. Sample size refers to schools (aggregation to the organizational level).
(e.g., Yang, 2012) such as organizational citizen behavior (OCB) (Chen & Francesco, 2003; Yang,
2012), job satisfaction (Lu, Siu, & Lu, 2010), psychological well-being) Panaccio & Vandenberghe,
2009), and students’ achievements (Qadach, Schecter, & Da’as, 2017).
Teacher’s affective commitment

Organizational commitment is defined as “the relative strength of an individual’s identification with
and involvement in a particular organization” (Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979, p. 226). Teachers’
affective commitment refers to teachers’ emotional attachment to, identification with, and involve-
ment in the organization (e.g., “I feel an emotional connection to this school”) (Meyer & Allen,
1997). In the context of educational organizations, Kushman (1992) found that teachers’ affective
commitment is directly linked to students’ achievements, and other studies found that it mediates
the link between principal leadership and student achievements (Koh, Steers, & Terborg, 1995; Ross
& Gray, 2006). Affective commitment is most likely to predict teachers’ engagement, which pro-
motes student learning (Trammell, 2016). Further, Qadach et al. (2017) found that a teachers’
organizational learning mechanisms (e.g., analyzing, storing, retrieving, and putting to use of
information, referring to the processes and means by which organizational experiences are stored
and coded into the school memory), promoted teachers’ affective commitment, which in turn
affected students’ achievement in math and science.
Previous research has found a relationship between ACAP and organizational commitment (e.g.,
Arnold, Benford, Hampton, & Sutton, 2010; Caporarello & Costa Zaccarelli, 2009). Arnold et al.
(2010) found that risk and ACAP were related to organizational commitment and information
sharing in business organizations. Other research has found that ACAP completely mediates the
relationship between innovativeness and affective commitment (Caporarello & Costa Zaccarelli,
2009).
Thus, we argue that ACAP will be correlated with teacher’s affective commitment (i.e., criterion
variable). Teachers who are involved in the school learning process, and who make a comprehensive
effort to transform and exploit the assimilated knowledge, and use that knowledge in their daily
work and in school processes, will perceive their job as less complicated; they will feel ownership of
the organizational knowledge, and they will want to contribute to their school. This will also
promote their emotional attachment to the organization and a strong feeling of belonging to the
school. Thus,
H1: ACAP will be positively correlated with teacher’s affective commitment.
Validity using teacher’s affective commitment

Validity for the ACAP questionnaire was measured using teacher’s affective commitment which is
presumed to relate positively to the extent of ACAP. We used 1,284 teachers from 153 Arab
elementary schools to examine this relationship (the same sample used for the CFA). Allen and
Meyer (1990) developed a questionnaire measuring organizational commitment. We used the
shorter version of this questionnaire for affective commitment (Gade, Tiggle, & Schumm, 2003).
Gade et al. (2003) validated this version with a reported alpha = .81. The scale included four items
that were rated by teachers along a 7-point Likert-type scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly
agree). We found alpha = .94 for this version. An example item was: I feel like “part of the family” in
the school. We found average affective commitment to be 5.83 (SD = .61).
We conducted CFA to verify the structure of the measure. All items loaded significantly on an
overall dimension (p < .001), and fit indexes were reasonable (CFI = .97, RMSEA = .04; Browne &
Cudeck, 1993; Hoyle, 1995).
To examine the relationship between teacher’s affective commitment and the ACAP construct,
the collected data reflect a hierarchical structure in which individual responses are nested within
organizational units (schools). We conducted a multilevel analysis using the Mplus program
(Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2012), with ACAP representing the organizational level, and affective
commitment representing the individual level. In this model, the multilevel equation also includes
control variables at the individual level: teacher’s tenure in the school, and at the school level: school
size (i.e., number of teachers in each school). The variable employee tenure has been shown to be
potentially relevant in terms of its impact on affective commitment (e.g., Bogler & Somech, 2004;
Yucel & Bektas, 2012), and school size has been shown to affect school processes, such as organiza-
tional learning (Berson et al., 2015).
To justify aggregating ACAP as a school-level variable, we tested whether aggregation to the
school level was appropriate by using the rWG statistic (James, Demaree, & Walf, 1984) and by
calculating the intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC1 and ICC2; Bliese, 2000) (see Table 7 for
ACAP measures). An rWG value of .70 or greater has been suggested as a sufficiently “good” level of
within-group interrater agreement (James et al., 1984). We found the average rWG to be over 0.80.
ANOVA measures (ICCs) revealed significant F statistics for all scales of ACAP. ICC1 examines
within-group variance by answering the following question: “To what extent can variability in the
measure be predicted from organization membership?” ICC2 examines between-group variance by
answering the following question: “How reliable are the organization means within a sample?”
(Bliese & Halverson, 1996).
Bliese (2000) recommended an ICC1 range of 0 to .50. In the current study, values ranged
between .20 and .28, within the range proposed by Bliese (see Table 7). Moreover, Koo and Li (2016)
suggested that ICC2 values less than 0.5 are indicative of poor reliability, values between 0.5 and 0.75
indicate moderate reliability, values between 0.75 and 0.9 indicate good reliability, and values greater
than 0.90 indicate excellent reliability (p. 158). In this study, ICC2 reliability scores fell between .47
and .65 (Table 7), which provides sufficient evidence that these measures differentiate groups in
a reliable way (Koo & Li, 2016). The acquisition dimension (ICC2 = .47) is also considered as fairly
reliable as suggested by Fleiss (Fleiss, 1986).
Overall, these results provided sufficient statistical justification for aggregating ACAP to the
group level (as shown in Table 7) (Bliese, 2000).
Table 8 shows the correlations between ACAP and its four factors, at the organizational level.
The results of the multilevel analysis showed that schools’ ACAP (Figure 1) is positively related to
affective commitment (γ = .38; p < .001) (there were no relations between school size and ACAP or
between tenure in the school and teacher’s affective commitment), confirming the criterion variable
(hypothesis 1).
Table 7. ICC, rWG of ACAP’s variables.

Factor ICC1 ICC2 rWG
Acquisition .23 .47 .80
Assimilation .21 .64 .87
Transformation .20 .65 .90
Exploitation .28 .54 .89
Table 8. Correlations between ACAP’s variables.

Acquisition Assimilation Transformation Exploitation ACAP Total
Acquisition .69** .62** .7** .83**
Assimilation .76** .74** .91**
Transformation .64** .88**
Exploitation .88**
Note. N = 153 schools (organizational level); **p < .01 (two tailed).
Discussion
This study advances our understanding of the ACAP construct in an educational context. It
highlights the importance of creating a valid, reliable measurement instrument that conceives of
the construct as a dynamic capacity. This capacity exists as two subsets—potential and realized
ACAPs, which comprise different processes, capacities, and organizational routines, and lead to
a competitive advantage (Zahra & George, 2002). Focused on the organizational level of analysis
and grounded in the theoretical contribution of Zahra and George (2002) and the terminology of
factor analysis, this study proposes four multi-item measurement scales that capture PACAP and
RACAP. This distinction also helps with an analysis of the relationships between both compo-
nents and an explanation of why certain organizations are more efficient than others in using
ACAP to create valuable learning. Linking theoretical and empirical knowledge yielded a 12-item
questionnaire with four-factors model (second order model) representing schools’ ACAP: acqui-
sition, assimilation, transformation, and exploitation, confirming the four-factor model for ACAP
proposed by Zahra and George (2002).
Jones and Craven (2001) concluded that improving ACAP requires the introduction of new
organizational routines which will help codify tacit knowledge. This emphasizes the essential role of
teachers and school principals in preparing the appropriate organizational routines and structures to
facilitate absorbing organizational knowledge. Such structures include organizational learning
mechanisms (OLMs) (Schechter, 2008), which were also found to positively predicting teachers’
affective commitment (Eno-Attarchi, 2011). In this regard, collecting information without the
needed mechanisms to analyze and store it in the organizational memory increases the risk of
being unable to comprehend the information or use it effectively in decision making (Zahra &
George, 2002). The development of the current ACAP questionnaire offers school principals an
instrument to assess the extent to which the school promotes the ACAP that enables teachers to gain
knowledge more effectively from the external environment.
An important leadership capacity for principals in the 21st century is the ability to initiate
collective learning among school members (Qadach et al., 2017; Louis, 2006; Schechter, 2008;
Youngs & King, 2002). Organizational learning is a critical component in achieving school effec-
tiveness, and schools that function as learning organizations perform better (e.g., Author2, Colleague
& Author1, ; Mulford & Silins, 2011). Berson et al. (2015) suggested that leaders promote a learning
climate, which in turn promotes school outcomes as assessed by parents and superintendents. Printy
(2008) suggested that leaders act as agenda setters for teacher learning and school improvement, and
as knowledge brokers who support teacher learning and provide resources for teachers to actively
engage in innovation. In this regard, assessing the ACAP as a means of fostering school learning may
serve as a scaffold not only for accountability purposes but, more importantly, for a more holistic
approach to collaboratively transforming data to knowledge, and assimilating, transforming, and
exploiting it in teachers’ work, thus better clarifying the role of these capabilities for school
improvement.
According to Zuckerman et al. (2018), in schools with well-established ACAP, district and school
leaders can negotiate demands from outside experts and the needs of the local community to
selectively filter disruptive policy through their systems. In so doing, they assimilate only what is
useful for their local context and transform existing knowledge on instruction and curriculum to meet
demands without abandoning locally developed practices. Thus, ACAP allows schools to resist what
the external parties are dictating to them. ACAP also allows them to maintain what they identify as the
strengths of their own curriculum and instructional programs (Zuckerman et al., 2018).
The advantage of these measurement instruments is that they are not limited to technological
knowledge; consequently, they enable examining the processes of acquisition and assimilation
(PACAP) and transformation and exploitation (RACAP) of other types of external knowledge,
leading to better learning at the organizational level. Especially in the educational system, teachers
should take courses every year (i.e., professional development, continuing academic degree) to
acquire different knowledge, such as pedagogical content knowledge (Hill, Rowan, & Ball, 2005);
they can then transform and exploit this knowledge for school processes in order to improve
innovation, flexibility, and performance, and create something new based on the transformed
knowledge (Lane et al., 2006), for example, of their teaching strategies in classroom. Zuckerman
et al. (2018) argued that acquiring external knowledge focusing on curriculum revision and
instructional improvement provides teachers with ongoing opportunities to assimilate and trans-
late new information into existing local knowledge about students and the community, toward
coherence and alignment of instructional systems. Thus, they can more readily absorb disruptive
policy innovations, and develop a resilience that allows schools to use what is relevant, and discard
what is not, by incorporating into their systems policies that prevent their being whipsawed by the
disruptive innovations.
Accordingly, schools with high levels of ACAP are expected to assimilate educational reforms
more effectively, and should utilize high levels of school learning processes, such as OLMs, to gain
added value from external and internal knowledge, in order to retain their competitive advantage.
Furthermore, a high ACAP depicts the school’s high ability to exploit and transform this knowledge
—from teachers acquiring this knowledge from external sources, transforming it and exploiting it for
their work, and for school processes, to make a change in the school and guaranteeing schools’ high
effectiveness.
Furthermore, individuals’ learning is greatest when the new knowledge to be assimilated is related
to the individuals’ existing knowledge structure (Roberts et al., 2012). For example, the knowledge
that teachers acquire from a particular website or technology can be very relevant to their work. The
more knowledge they assimilate and exploit, the greater the quality of their teaching and the more
powerful their pedagogy for facilitating student learning (Cuban, Kirpatrick, & Peck, 2001; Ertmer &
Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010).
Another example relates to project teams operating with their different stakeholders (parents,
superintendent, etc.); by sharing information, they tend to enhance their knowledge base and
capabilities, and transform and exploit this knowledge for school processes and structure.
On the other hand, low ACAP may be considered acquisition and assimilation without transfor-
mation or exploitation for the school process. Schools that do not engage in the transformation and
exploitation of learning do not enable staff at any level to learn collaboratively or continuously, or to
share this knowledge, or to put this learning to use in response to social needs and the demands of
their environment. Thus, low ACAP represents the gap between PACAP and RACAP, in which
teachers cannot exploit their capacity in the school process and promote the school.
The present findings indicate external validation for the ACAP questionnaire (with teacher’s
affective commitment). This finding presents a theoretical innovation, as no previous studies tested
the correlation between ACAP and teachers’ affective commitment. It is important to stress that
because ACAP predicts teacher’s affective commitment, it is important to promote the latter. It has
been found that affective commitment promotes student achievement (Qadach et al., 2017). Thus, it
is reasonable to assume that leaders who promote the implementation of ACAP processes more
extensively in their schools may foster stronger feelings of appreciation among teachers, which may
enhance emotional attachment over a sense of obligation. This may encourage teachers to invest
more time and effort in formal and informal activities to achieve the school’s goals.
Despite the theoretical and practical implications, the present study is not limitation-free. The
instrument was validated for the Israeli educational system. This tool should be examined in other
populations and samples (e.g., secondary schools) to replicate and further refine its factor structure.
Significant differences may be associated with school context, such as how much principals encou-
rage teachers to acquire knowledge, the schools’ need for specific external knowledge, or how
strongly teachers acquire external knowledge and what type of knowledge it is. Thus, administering
this measurement tool in different school settings, cultures, and countries would be an important
step in extending the validity of the factorial model.
Moreover, the present study used self-report questionnaires for the teachers. Self-report study
instruments may be influenced by socially desirable responses, endangering the “trueness” of the
study findings. Further research should complement these perceptions with more objective mea-
sures, such as open interviews, in order to evaluate actual experiences of external and internal
knowledge implementation of school ACAP.
This study examined the concurrent criterion-related validity through teacher’s affective commit-
ment. According to previous studies, ACAP is further expected to predict organizational effective-
ness and performance. This study did not examine ACAP and other school objective variables, such
as the objective criterion of student achievement. Future research should examine ACAP with other
objective measures to strengthen the criterion validity.
It would also be interesting to explore the association between different types of knowledge and the
two dimensions of ACAP. Becker and Peters (2000) argued that organizations need higher ACAP for
scientific knowledge than for other types of knowledge. Roberts et al. (2012) recommend that research-
ers should attempt to measure absorptive capacity with respect to specific knowledge domains. Schools
also need to acquire and assimilate different types of pedagogical knowledge. Therefore, knowledge
types and the influence of leaders on the promotion of all types of information in the organization
should be tested. For example, future research might examine which school climate and principal
leadership are preferred to promote organizational ACAP for pedagogical innovations.
In conclusion, the present study offers intriguing insights for both researchers and practitioners,
and provides new insights into developing important sources of sustainable competitive advantage.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
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Leadership and Policy in Schools

ISSN: 1570-0763 (Print) 1744-5043 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/nlps20

Examining Organizational Absorptive Capacity

Rima’a Da’as & Mowafaq Qadach

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Examining Organizational Absorptive Capacity Construct:

Definition of absorptive capacity

Dimensions of absorptive capacity

Table 1. Dimensions of absorptive capacity (ACAP).

The context of the study

Development of ACAP scale

Study 1: Scale refinement—Exploratory factor analysis (EFA)

Table 2. Structure matrix for exploratory factor analysis.

Study 2: Scale validation—Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)

Table 3. Fornell–Larcker coefficients for the first sample.

ACAP and the validity variable

Table 4. Comparison of fit indices of competing ACAP models (N = 153).

Figure 1. Four-factor model with a second-order ACAP.

Table 5. Four factors operationally defined (N = 153).

Teacher’s affective commitment

H1: ACAP will be positively correlated with teacher’s affective commitment.

Validity using teacher’s affective commitment

Table 7. ICC, rWG of ACAP’s variables.

Table 8. Correlations between ACAP’s variables.

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