Capacidade individual de absorção de conhecimento, uso inovador da tecnologia da informação e desempenho profissional: uma análise sobre possíveis relações no Tribunal Regional Eleitoral Do Espírito Santo

Abstract

Introduction: Identifying, assimilating, and using new knowledge has become, increasingly, fundamental for the management of organizations in general, fostering the ability to conceive new ideas and configure organizational resources in different ways, as well as stimulating the competence to form more efficient and innovative strategies. In this sense, the absorptive capacity (ACAP) is a relevant concept in the literature on management, whether analyzed at the organizational level or at the individual level. Context: In the case of the public sector, although it is not the case of a competitive environment (in the strictest and market-oriented sense of the term), managers have been compelled to improve the performance of government organizations with a view to better achieving their purposes and its reason for existing. Problem: Among other challenges, it is asked how to promote the innovative use of information technology and increase the performance of servants to face the increasingly dynamic and complex environment in which public organizations are inserted, especially the Electoral Justice (in which it was performed the present research). Objective: The main objective of this study was to analyze whether the individual ability to absorb knowledge positively influences the innovative use of information technology at work and the professional performance using information technology. Theory: The absorptive capacity theory was used, also using concepts of knowledge management, innovation, and performance. In the seminal work on absorptive capacity, the scope turned to organizational learning, with a view to providing organizations with the capacity to absorb new knowledge, recognizing and valuing knowledge from external sources and assimilating it for application in their processes. In this original meaning, ACAP would aim to establish commercial strategies, which could be associated with obtaining competitive advantages. There were important later recontextualizations, considering the absorptive capacity as a group of organizational routines and processes by which companies acquire, assimilate, transform, and apply knowledge to produce a dynamic organizational capacity. A theoretical evolution, which is adopted in this work, defines ACAP as the organization's ability to use knowledge obtained externally through three sequential processes (recognition, assimilation, and application of knowledge). Justification: This study is justified given its potential to contribute to the identification of new facets of absorptive capacity, at the individual level and in the context of public organizations, something little explored in the literature so far. In addition to contributing to the expansion of theoretical bases not yet so well-founded, the research is justified with the possibility of identifying practical subsidies for the establishment of more assertive strategies, in public management, with a view to the innovative use of information technology and professional performance. After three decades of studies and applications about the absorptive capacity, it is necessary to acknowledge its actuality in the face of an increasingly demanding and challenging environment for organizations, whether to a greater or lesser degree, whether profit-oriented or not. As for the methods and procedures, the research had a quantitative approach. Data were collected through the application of a questionnaire to public servants of a Regional Electoral Court and were treated through the technique of structural equation modelling based on covariance. The results indicated a positive and relevant influence of individual ACAP on the innovative use of information technology at work and on the professional performance using information technology (consubstantiated, in the case studied, in a package of applications to support remote and collaborative work: the Microsoft Office 365 E1).