Dynamic capabilities: What they need to be dynamic?

Abstract

Strategic management theory developed dynamic capabilities concept aiming to explain how organizations can achieve and sustain the competitive advantage in the continuously changing environment. We suggest that this concept, though being extremely powerful, still needs elaboration along two important questions: what are the origins of the dynamism of these capabilities and what managers can do in practice if they want to develop them. In this paper we aim to address these issues. Bridging strategic management and change management, we introduce a concept of "organizational change capability" as a constituent of any dynamic capability. Further on we discuss key elements of change capability, propose a number of managerial tools that can contribute to its development and illustrate our arguments with a case study.