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This study aims to identify context-specific antecedents to schools’ absorptive capacity (AC) and to show how those can enact “a virtuous learning circle.”

The study uses a mixed method: an exploration based on semi-structured interviews with educational experts; the development of a measurement scale and a partial least squares structural equation modelling to test the impact of the antecedents.

The results yielded four empirically-grounded antecedents and their measurement scales, namely, prior knowledge, employees’ skills, educational projects and interactions with the environment (Studies one and two). All antecedents are significantly and positively related to AC processes (study three). Using the organizational learning theory perspective, the results have been interpreted as an AC “virtuous learning circle.”

With increasing pressures to adapt, a case of which was the COVID-19 pandemic, schools can greatly benefit from absorbing knowledge flows. This suggests the construction a favourable environment for AC. To this end, the individual (employees’ prior knowledge and skills), organizational (educational projects) and institutional level of managerial action (interactions with the environment) can be effective when create a recursive organizational learning circle. In addition, this study offers an expert-validated measurement scale for self-assessment of a school’s specific contingencies, and thus, for planning of punctual interventions to develop AC.

This study advances the existing body of knowledge management in the educational context by rigorously identifying and validating a scale for measuring the antecedents of AC and developing an interpretive approach to the AC “virtuous circle.”

Different studies have analyzed the relationship between organizational learning and value creation. However, the question of how crowdsourcing affects the relationships between organizational learning and value creation remains unexplored. This paper aims to explore the mediating role of crowdsourcing in the relationship between organizational learning and value creation in local governance.

The hypotheses were tested based on data collected from 205 local governance units in Poland using crowdsourcing. Data collection was carried out by using a set of standardized questionnaires. Correlation analyses were used to specify the strength of the relationships between the variables. To test the hypotheses, multiple regression analysis was used.

The results have shown that in the local governance organizational learning is related to crowdsourcing, while organizational learning is not related to value creation. Crowdsourcing does not play a mediating role in explaining the relationship between organizational learning and value creation.

A research model was developed based on the relevant literature in the field of organizational learning, value creation and crowdsourcing. This study urges researchers to explore the relationship between organizational learning and value creation in other public organizations using crowdsourcing.

This is the first study on the intermediate role of crowdsourcing in the relationship between organizational learning and value creation in local governance. The proposed model enriches the existing literature and allows better understanding of how crowdsourcing acts as an intermediary in the organizational learning-value creation relationship.