STRATEGIC ORIENTATIONS, THE MEDIATING EFFECT OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY AND INNOVATION: A STUDY AMONG MALAYSIAN MANUFACTURING SMES ABDULLAH AL MAMUN * Global Entrepreneurship Research and Innovation Centre (GERIC) Universiti Malaysia Kelantan abdullah.a@umk.edu.my SYED ALI FAZAL Faculty of Entrepreneurship and Business Universiti Malaysia Kelantan syedfazal971@hotmail.com MUHAMMAD MOHIUDDIN School of Business and Economics Thompson Rivers University, Canada mmohiuddin@tru.ca ZHAN SU Faculty of Administrative Sciences Laval University, Quebec, Canada zhan.Su@fsa.ulaval.ca Published 24 May 2018 Strategic orientations (SOs) and absorptive capacity can significantly enhance innovation capacity in manufacturing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). This study explores the relationship of SOs i.e., Market Orientations (MOs), Entrepreneurial Orientations (EOs) and Customer Orientations (COs) to absorptive capacity on the one hand, and to inno- vation on the other hand. The study also delves into the issue of how absorptive capacity mediates the effects of SOs on innovation in manufacturing SMEs from emerging coun- tries’ perspective. This study uses a cross-sectional design and quantitative data collected through a structured interview of top managers from 360 manufacturing SMEs. The / Corresponding author. International Journal of Innovation Management (2019) 1950016 (25 pages) © World Scientific Publishing Europe Ltd. DOI: 10.1142/S1363919619500166 1950016-1 Int. J. Innov. Mgt. Downloaded from www.worldscientific.com by UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL on 05/27/18. For personal use only.