Information technology and organizational learning in knowledge alliances and networks: Evidence from U.S. pharmaceutical industry

Recent years have witnessed a change in firms’ innovation patterns, from closed to open, in which information technology (IT) has played an important role. This paper aims to open up the black box of IT-enabled absorptive capacity by theorizing and testing the role of IT in two organizational learning processes, which are either interactive with partners in the knowledge alliance or non-interactive with others in the knowledge network. In particular, we formulate a model explaining how a firm's IT investment moderates its organizational learning processes in knowledge alliances and networks, which sheds light on the role of IT as an enabler of absorptive capacity. Using a panel data set from the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, the results show the moderating role of IT in strengthening the organizational learning processes from knowledge alliance experience to coinvented knowledge and from knowledge network centrality to assimilated knowledge, which, in turn, improve firm competitiveness.