Knowledge absorptive capacity and innovation performance: Do spatial competences matter?

In today's world where globalization and competition are rapidly increasing, the continuous renewal of technology and the increasing value of information have made knowledge absorptive capacity an indispensable factor to make the enterprises more superior than their competitors and maintain their existence. This study aims to investigate the effects of intra-district shared competences and firm-specific capacities for knowledge creation and knowledge absorption on innovation performance. To this end, face-to-face interviews based on a structured questionnaire form were carried out with 54 companies in Antalya Technocity Region. The results of this study have the potential to lead the strategy development studies in Antalya Technocity area. The results of this study showed that intra-district shared competences have no significant effect on firm-specific knowledge based capacities. Consistent with the previous studies, the findings indicated that an increase in knowledge absorptive capacity of companies leads to better innovation performance. According to the results, absorptive capacity of an organization needs to be supported by its internal knowledge creation capacity. Without this instrumental effect, internal knowledge creation capacity of firms alone is insufficient to cause increased performance of innovation. Overall, this study revealed that absorptive capacity exerts positive effects in increasing innovation performance.