In today’s changing environment, knowledge, and technology are the basis of competition, especially for knowledge-based organizations. These organizations need to apply new knowledge in order to fulfill their business goals. A part of this knowledge is derived from external resources. Hence, the ability to exploit external knowledge is a critical factor for the innovative capabilities of organizations.This ability is called “absorptive capacity”, which has different levels from the individual level to national level in the literature. Considering the importance of the absorptive capacity theory, this study attempts to analyze this concept with related theories. Therefore, some existing theories related to this concept such as learning, dynamic capabilities, innovation, strategic directions, knowledge-based view, managerial cognition, and co-existence theories are examined in this study and the relationship of these theories with absorptive capacity is posed.

Nowadays, using social media has expanded in societies and organizations. So the question arises: What are the effects of social media on organizations? It seems the varied effects of social media on organizations altogether form a complex, dynamic system. This study examines this issue with system dynamics to model the dynamic complexity. The concept absorptive capacity is used as a mediator to apply the social media effects on the system. absorptive capacity means the organization's ability to recognize valuable external information, assimilate, and utilize it in the organization, explaining the difference in the performance of organizations. After modeling, using the data obtained from a company active in the Iranian food industry, the relationships between the model variables are defined. To generalize the model, its variables are normalized so that the results can be applicable for different organizations. To improve the current situation, four policies are proposed and exerted to the model. The results demonstrate that proactively managing social media, compared to increasing the investment share of social media, has a more considerable effect on the organization's financial performance and market share.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of absorptive capacity and knowledge sharing on employees innovative behavior in ministry of sports and youth of iran. The research method was descriptive survey and it is one type of apply research. The statistical population included all employees of the ministry of sport and youth that their number was 400 people through proportional stratified random sampling, and 230 people were selected as statistical sample. And the class-experts (formal and contractual) - and managers (department managers, deputies, and group presidents). In order to determine the face and content validity of the questionnaires, the professors and experts in the field of management were used. For data collection we used to three questionnaires of absorptive capacity Zahra and George (2002); Jansen, Van Den Bosch, and Volberda (2005), knowledge sharing de Vries, Van den Hooff, and de Ridder (2006), and innovative behaviour Scott and Bruce (1994). For data analyze, we used to structural equation modeling (SEM) and path analysis by the Amos software version 24. The results of the research showed that there is a direct (positive and significant) relationship between the absorption capacity and knowledge sharing with the innovative behavior. Therefore, it can be concluded that sports organizations, as much as attracting knowledge and exploiting it, and improving knowledge sharing, promote the innovative behavior of employees is. Managers should provide the field for attracting external knowledge and sharing knowledge among employees, it promotes the innovative behavior of staff and improves the performance of sports organizations.

Cohen and Levinthal (1990) defined absorptive capacity (AC) as "the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends". They argued that AC is an organizational learning concept and is the cumulative effect of continuous learning. However, this definition deals primarily with external knowledge and information. Implicit in the definition is the notion that firms are aware of internal information and have access to it. In some cases, organizations may not be aware or have access to its existing knowledge, especially tacit knowledge that can only be communicated by direct social interaction. Thus, a network of formal and informal communication linkages are necessary for the internal diffusion of new knowledge and technology. This study develops valid and reliable instruments to measure the sub-dimensions of AC.

One important factor influencing business success is the number of innovations introduced to market. Innovations can be exploitative or exploitative. While exploitative innovations improve efficiency in short term, explorative innovations improve flexibility and help firms to face changing environment in long term. Since the potential and realized absorptive capacity could have different effects on explorative and exploitative innovations, this research aims to investigate the relationships between ambidexterity and absorptive capacity in order to explain the inter-relationships of their sub-constructs. This is an applied research which uses a survey based descriptive correlational method. It also uses Structural Equation modelling to analyze data. To this end, a random sampling procedure was used to collect data from a sample of 90 defense firms (also called industries in Iran defense sector). The results showed that the realized absorptive capacity is an antecedent for exploration and exploitation. Furthermore, while potential absorptive capacity positively moderates the relationship between realized absorptive capacity and explorative innovation, it negatively moderates the relationship between former and exploitative innovation.