Dynamic capabilities – key drivers of organizational renewal

Where: Zoom Platform
Time: 2 p.m.

Please contact school.socialsciences [at] unitn.it

 for the link to the Zoom event.

Speaker

• Päivi Maijanen-Kyläheiko, LUT University, Lappeenranta, Finland

Abstract

Dynamic capabilities are so called higher-order capabilities that organizations develop and exploit to reconfigure and transform their resource base – technologies, routines, competencies, capabilities – to better fit with the changing business environment. The launch of the dynamic capability view in the 1990s was an important step toward dynamizing the strategic management perspective having its roots in the evolutionary economics and organizational theory. By now, it has become a frequently used approach in the strategic management research to explain firm’s successful adaptation and competitive advantage in the volatile business environment. The research on dynamic capabilities has advanced considerably and one of the trends has been the shift from the industry and top management perspective towards in depth analyses of  microfoundations of dynamic capabilities in their organizational context.
As an example of this trend, Päivi Maijanen-Kyläheiko introduces her current work-in-progress based on an in-depth longitudinal case study in the Finnish media industry. At the time of the study, the company was going through a vast digital transformation process. The study scrutinizes how dynamic capabilities are deployed by top and middle managers and how dynamic capabilities between the different organizational levels are interrelated and managed during the organizational renewal process. The study highlights how internal networks and development of more lean and flexible structures strengthen dynamic capabilities. From the evolutionary perspective, this study indicates that each organizational level follows its own learning paths that are, however, strongly interconnected, thus, strengthening evolutionary learning cycles of the whole organization.