Investigating the impact of absorptive capacity on operational performance: the mediating role of supply chain resilience

This study examines the impact of the absorptive capacity process on operational performance through supply chain resilience. Based on analysing 800 questionnaires, the results show that all the absorptive capacity components have a substantial direct impact on operational performance, supporting the hypotheses arguing that knowledge acquisition and exploitation have a significant positive impact on operational performance. Therefore, supply chain resilience has a partial mediation impact between absorptive capacity and operational performance components. The paper highlighted the critical role of exploitation as a central process in absorptive capacity, which has the most dominant impact on supply chain resilience and operational performance. Furthermore, the study sheds light on the role of absorptive capacity in facilitating supply chain abilities to respond to disruptions and vulnerabilities and enhance organisations' operational performance. The study also demonstrates evidence of the learning implication of dynamic capability theory using absorptive capacity.