Dynamic Capabilities and Relationships

In this chapter, we make a case for the plurality of conceptual understandings as a constructive element in achieving theoretical progress in the field of research on dynamic capabilities. For this purpose, former members of the doctoral program on „dynamic capabilities and relationships “share their stories of how they came to understand dynamic capabilities, and how this way-finding has helped them advance their research. We argue that their theoretical progress has emerged not in spite, but because of the struggles they faced when engaging with conceptual ambiguities related to dynamic capabilities. This insight has important implications for dealing with the plurality of understandings advanced in the field of research on dynamic capabilities.

In the present paper, I suggest the reconceptualization of dynamic capabilities as the scientific method being applied in firms. This reconceptualization serves as a possible explanation of the popularity of the framework. I further argue that available measurement instruments of the concept cannot explain a firm’s long-term survival and sustained competitive advantage. To that end, I call for the development of instruments that emphasize learning through know-how absorption and knowledge management. In this new model, successful firms are those that constantly generate new hypotheses, test the hypotheses through experimentation, and adapt their working theories.

Previous research has emphasized the importance of social relations for managerial performance outcomes and strategic change initiatives. However, the way in which social relations affect managers’ success in achieving strategic change remains unaddressed. In this conceptual paper, we draw on theory from strategy (dynamic managerial capabilities) and anthropology (relational models theory) to investigate the effects of social relations on the outcomes of strategic change. By focusing on the capabilities of sensing opportunities and threats, seizing opportunities, and reconfiguring resources, we explore how social relations impact strategic change in organizations and propose that managers who organize their social relations at work in a dynamic way are better at achieving strategic change.

In today’s fast-changing environment, achieving sustainable competitive advantage constitutes a major challenge for managers. Research suggests that dynamic managerial capabilities (DMCs) enable managers to overcome this challenge by building, integrating, and reconfiguring organizational resources and competences. While prior studies in this tradition have largely contributed to our understanding of the effectiveness of the DMCs, there is a dearth of research on the implications of managerial cognition, a core factor of DMCs, for such effectiveness. In this chapter, we review evidence from DMC research documenting the impact of managerial cognition, namely confirmation bias, on strategic change. We, then, derive propositions on how confirmation bias can negatively impact sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring that, in turn, may lead to ineffective strategic change. Drawing on these propositions, the current chapter proposes an agenda for further research on the effectiveness of the DMCs.

In a firm, which is viewed as a distributed knowledge system, the role of knowledge integration mechanisms is critical. In the context of data analytics, data mining and statistical analysis enable firms to generate knowledge, but this knowledge needs to be channeled to the end user. With this study based on the social capital literature, we argue that social interactions between IT and marketing unit members facilitate knowledge sharing in an intraorganizational setting, which in turn results in improved innovative performance. The theoretical arguments are supported by empirical results collected via an online survey. The theoretical and practical contributions of the study are also discussed.

Digital innovation radically changes the appearance of established industries and alters the way firms do business. Digital technology permeates products and services and structures the relationship between firms and their customers. This chapter specifically examines how firms engage their customers in repeat business, thus locking customers in further transactions with their incumbent providers. Building on the antecedents of lock-in, we demonstrate how digital innovation will shift attention toward the exploitation of network externalities and how the role of switching costs will diminish in the digital era. We developed a conceptual framework that maps the characteristics of digital innovation and digital technology, depicts their impacts on the antecedents of switching costs and network externalities, and ultimately points out how switching costs and network externalities will affect lock-in. We contribute to the strategic management and information systems literature by outlining the emerging disequilibrium of relevance between the antecedents of lock-in facing a world of continuous digital innovation.

Persuasion knowledge refers to consumers’ knowledge of how persuasion works in the marketplace. We argue that persuasion knowledge can be perceived as a dynamic consumer capability. Similar to the concept of organizational dynamic capabilities, persuasion knowledge can only be successful (in terms of increasing the value and benefit for consumers) if the concept is considered dynamic and in need of adaptation to rapidly changing environments, that is, changing media and advertising landscapes. A dynamic view of persuasion knowledge can help researchers interested in understanding the concept of persuasion knowledge, its antecedents and outcomes, by differentiating between the stable elements of the concept (e.g., identifying something as persuasion) and the dynamic elements of the concept (e.g., identifying native advertising as advertising). Future research on persuasion knowledge can benefit from the ideas and insights obtained from the research on dynamic capabilities.

In today’s corporate environment, organizations are paying increasing attention to the spatial configuration of workspaces where creative processes and innovation are supposed to take place. These environments are designed to foster and sustain creative performance at work, providing digital, physical, and hybrid solutions to fulfill individuals’ needs and to enable modes of working alone as well as in teams. Starting with a literature review of previous research on this multidisciplinary topic addressing team dynamics, workspace design, and their relations to creativity, this chapter provides useful guidelines for the processes of creation and usage of physical, digital, and hybrid environments to foster and manage creativity in work-related settings. Firms’ strategic intents and users’ needs, sensorial experiences, and modes of interaction during the development of the creative process are aspects that are thoroughly explored and explained.