Impact of absorptive capacity on project success through mediating role of strategic agility: Project complexity as a moderator

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of potential and realized absorptive capacity on project suc-cess through both the mediating roles of strategic agility and the moderating role of project complexity. A simple random sampling was used to collect data from 285 respondents working in the IT sector of small-medium sized Portuguese enterprises (SMEs). Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, data were collected from and distributed on, several online channels (Gmail, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook). Smart PLS-SEM, version 3.2.8 was used for the analysis. The results indicate that the two absorptive capacity sub-dimensions, poten-tial and realized absorptive capacity, not only directly affect a project's success but also indirectly through the mediator of strategic agility. Although the moderating role of project complexity has a positive and signif-icant effect on the relation between potential absorptive capacity and strategic agility, it is insignificant con-cerning the relation between realized absorptive capacity and strategic agility. Finally, theoretical and practical contributions are made, research limitations are stated and future research is suggested. & COPY; 2023 Published by Elsevier Espana, S.L.U. on behalf of Journal of Innovation & Knowledge. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)