The Strategic Relevance of Organizational Capabilities: An Assessment and Proposal for Integration

Författare

Niklas Lars Hallberg

Summary, in English

In strategic management, the concept of organizational capabilities appears in two sets of related literatures: the resource-based view and the dynamic capabilities approach. The resource-based view treats organizational capabilities as unitary factors that explain cross-sectional industry performance differentials. The dynamic capabilities approach, on the other hand, treats organizational capabilities as composite constructs that explain longitudinal differences in adaptation. Neither research tradition presents a complete account of the strategic relevance, structure, and dynamics, of organizational capabilities. This paper addresses the challenge faced in strategic management of presenting a consistent framework for how capabilities affect performance at a given point in time as well as how they emerge over time. It is argued that while the dynamic capability approach has provided important insights on how composite organizational capabilities, operating under behavioral and organizational imperfections, adapt or change over time in response to environmental conditions; it has not yet acquired an integrated position on how organizational capabilities are deployed to achieve desired ends at a specific point in time. The aim of this paper is thus to outline an integrative framework that provides operational content to the concept of organizational capabilities by positioning it in relation to the cross-sectional and longitudinal traditions in strategic management.

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