Potential Absorptive Capacity, Network Embeddedness and Knowledge Acquisition in Global Manufacturing Network

Global manufacturing network (GMN) is a new manufacturing system, which provides great opportunities for local firms in developing countries to acquire knowledge and upgrade through collaborations in GMN. This paper hypothesizes that local firm´s potential absorptive capacity has a positive impact on its knowledge acquisition in GMN, and the association between them is moderated by network embeddedness. Using data of manufacturing firms, this paper confirm the hypothesis that local firm´s potential absorptive capacity can contribute to its knowledge acquisition in GMN, and the hypothesis of the moderating effect of network embeddedness is partially supported by results for the reason that only information sharing and joint problem solving (components of network embeddedness) have moderating effect on the association between potential absorptive capacity and local firm´s knowledge acquisition