Absorptive Capacity: the Role of Communities of Practice

Using a ‘process’ based conception of absorptive capacity, this paper reports the findings from an ethnography of organizational learning conducted within the marketing department of the UK’s postal provider, Royal Mail. Through vignettes of two contrasting marketing projects undertaken in conjunction with external partners, the results show that interorganizational learning is supported by informal practices enacted through communities of practice. This highlights the relatively neglected role of social and material practices in the generation of absorptive capacity, but also shows that the learning produced by communities is mediated by relations of power among these groups. This paper develops the theory of absorptive capacity by shifting attention away from ‘prior knowledge’ in supporting learning and turning towards the role of everyday interaction and power relations in producing knowledge in practice.