Increasingly, small firms with a history tied to a specific geographic location are having their survival threatened by new and innovative Web-based entrants. This paper considers the plight of such firms and proposes an alternative means to reflect on how they may or may not learn about such threats or opportunities. Adopting an evolutionary perspective, the construct absorptive capacity is used to highlight the deficiencies of current market orientation theory to explain the process of firm learning. The conceptual model of evolutionary potential provides a framework through which both the firm and its owners’/owner’s abilities to learn can be taken into account.
History
Publication title
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development
Volume
11
Pagination
362-370
ISSN
1462-6004
Department/School
TSBE
Publisher
Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Rights statement
Copyright 2004 Emerald Group. The definitive published version is available online at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/info/journals/jsbed/jsbed.jsp