From potential absorptive capacity to innovation outcomes in project teams: The conditional mediating role of the realized absorptive capacity in a relational learning context

Starting from the construct absorptive capacity, this study separately treats its two dimensions – potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) and realized absorptive capacity (RACAP) – and analyzes their influence on innovation outcomes (IO) in project teams. We also examine potential absorptive capacity as an antecedent of realized absorptive capacity. In addition, we propose that relational learning (RL) will play a moderator role reinforcing the PACAP and RACAP link. Consequently, this paper builds and tests a conditional process model. Data was collected from a sample of 110 project managers of firms belonging to the Spanish automotive components manufacturing sector. Results from variance-based structural equation modeling and PROCESS tool show that RACAP fully mediates the influence of the PACAP on IO, and this indirect effect is positively conditioned by RL. This paper provides evidence that when RL achieves a low value, this indirect influence is not different from zero.