Abstract
This study aims to highlight the importance of communication and absorptive capacity in
virtual universities of Pakistan. In this relationship, this study also investigates the
mediating role of trust and knowledge sharing. This study applies social exchange theory
to understand the relationship among variables. Some of the relationship between
variables was also supported through theory of knowledge creation. For this study, data
was collected from 267 employees of two virtual universities in Pakistan. After running
the reliability & validity tests, this study used PROCESS Macros by Hayes for mediation
analysis. The results suggest that communication has a positive and significant impact on
absorptive capacity. Results further prove that trust and knowledge sharing sequentially
mediate the relationship between communication and absorptive capacity. The findings
of the study reveal that greater opportunities of communication, trust and knowledge
sharing among virtual employees leads to build their absorptive capacity. This study is
useful for virtual organizations, as it provides a mechanism of communication to improve
the absorptive capacity of cross-functional virtual employees under behavioral stress i.e.
trust and knowledge sharing. This study suggests that future research may focus on
specific team level analysis for innovative behavior etc.
Zia Ur Rehman , Kausar Fiaz Khawaja, Syed Ahmad Ali . (2019) Enhancing Absorptive Capacity through Communication: Mediating Role of Trust and Knowledge Sharing: A Case of Virtual Universities, Pakistan Journal of Commerce and Social Sciences, Volume 13, Issue 2.
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