Publication Details
Abstract
This paper develops a conceptual framework for understanding how absorptive capacity and open innovation jointly shape productivity growth in industrial firms operating in transition economies. While the international innovation-management literature has produced robust evidence on the antecedents and outcomes of firm-level absorptive capacity, the systematic integration of this work with open-innovation theory and with the specific conditions of transition-economy industrial sectors remains underdeveloped. Building on a structured review of forty-three peer-reviewed sources indexed in Web of Science and Scopus, the analysis integrates four streams of scholarship: the absorptive-capacity tradition initiated by Cohen and Levinthal, the open-innovation paradigm developed by Chesbrough, the dynamic-capabilities perspective associated with Teece, and the productivity-growth literature anchored in endogenous-growth theory. The paper proposes a four-component framework—prior knowledge stock, external search breadth, organizational integration mechanisms, and innovation-exploitation routines—through which industrial firms in transition economies can convert investment in research, technology, and human capital into measurable productivity outcomes. The framework is illustrated through an empirical vignette drawn from the industrial sector of Uzbekistan, where rapid post-2017 liberalization has created an unprecedented but unevenly absorbed flow of foreign technology, capital, and managerial knowledge. The findings carry implications for innovation-management scholarship, for industrial policy in transition economies, and for the comparative literature on technology absorption in emerging-market settings. Several directions for future empirical research are identified, including longitudinal capability-building studies, comparative cross-country investigations, and the integration of foreign-direct-investment spillover perspectives into the measurement of firm-level innovation performance.