Enhancing the Potential Absorptive Capacity of the Project-Based Organizations Through Human Resources Development: Evidence from Registered Contractors in Tanzania

Abstract

The potential absorptive capacity (PAcap) of a firm can best be achieved, given
a set of antecedents in terms of knowledge sources and experiences. The limit to
these antecedents however remains unexplored and it offers opportunities for
future expansion of the ACAP theory through research. The main purpose of
this study is to examine the influence of human resources development practices
on PAcap of project based organizations (PBOs). The study is explanatory in
nature and it adopted a cross-sectional research design. In data analysis,
simple random sampling technique was applied in selecting 293 representatives
from 293 contractors and questionnaires was used in data collection as well as
the PLS-SEM with the help of SmartPLS 3.2.8 software. The findings reveal
that career development, developmental performance appraisal and team
building have positive influence on the PAcap of a firm. The study contributes
to the body of knowledge that all of the three human resources development
(HRD) attributes are the perfect antecedents of PAcap in the absorptive
capacity theory. It is also recommended that managers and policy makers have
to introduce, initiate and encourage employees to participate in different career
development programmes, engage fully in developmental performance
appraisal programs and effectively build teams. Future researches on
absorptive capacity are suggested to be conducted in the longitudinal kind of
design to accommodate the procedures of knowledge creation from acquisition
to its exploitation.

Keywords: Career development, Developmental performance appraisal, team building,
Potential absorptive capacity