Session 62
Multi-level perspectives on capability development
Track J |
Date: Monday, October 5, 2015 |
Track I |
Time: 08:00 – 09:15 |
Paper |
Room: Governor's Square 10 |
Session Chair:
- Martin Friesl, Lancaster University
Abstract: For years, scholars have searched for the answer to how competitive advantage can be achieved and maintained. This quest becomes even more difficult in environments that are highly dynamic. Hospitals face this dilemma. What is even more interesting, or troubling, is that these organizations are seemingly highly rigid and restricted through being monitored by institutions, having to obey to many laws and regulations with respect to operating and quality standards, and have to operate in line with restrictive protocols. Still, some hospitals manage to achieve adequate perforamances, whereas indeed other go bankrupt. In particular protocols, as restrictions endogenous to the hospital, are factors that a manager is able to control through continuous adaptation and aligning interests of many hospital stakeholders. This article provides a qualitative inquiry into how dynamic managerial capabilities help hospitals overcome the described dilemma, through a case study in 3 hospitals.
Abstract: The possibility that everyday micro-organizational practices can give rise to dynamic capabilities that then provides a firm with competitive advantage over its rivals, remains an intriguing but unexamined question. We argue here that a firm’s dynamic capabilities are better understood in practice-terms as its cultivated ‘habitus’. From this practice-based perspective a ‘firm’ is nothing more than the gradual ‘firming up’ of a collection of productive social practices. What accounts for a firm’s competitive advantage therefore is an amalgam of historically-shaped social practices held together by an underlying ‘habitus’ which predisposes the firm to respond to external challenges in a unique and idiosyncratic manner that sets it apart from its competitors. This helps explain why an organizations’ success is often deemed to be inimitable and non-substitutable.
Abstract: Whereas strategy research has begun to clarify how practices as well as capabilities affect routines, much less is known about the capability-practice relationship, in particular the activities that shapes the environment. How do practice influence the shaping-effect of capabilities while breaking with the past? To examine this question, I pursue theory development and draw on empirical data from Ericsson and ABB. Based on a polar cross-case comparison with strong replication of evidence, two key categories emerged from a data-set of 5.000 documents including 625 verbatim transcripts from 29 interviews. The study shows that managers’ use symbolic capital in strategizing that changes a capability rather than a routine-component. To theorize this finding, the Bourdieusian perspective provided useful frame of reference to develop compelling theory.
Abstract: The ontological turn in organisational capabilities theorising has pitched methodological individualism against methodological collectivism. Although illuminating in their own rights, it has been acknowledged that reconciling this dichotomy holds the key to unlocking the capabilities paradox. In this work we attempt to provide a solution to this micro-macro divide. Drawing on Archer’s morphogenesis approach we examine capabilities in terms of emergent social structures. We argue for the pre-existence of an objective capability and analyse its reproduction or transformation in terms of a reciprocal interplay between the emergent powers of structure, culture and agency. We thus maintain that by preserving the ontic differentiation between structure, culture and agency the conditions propitious for continuity or change are illuminated.
All Sessions in Track J...
- Sun: 08:00 – 09:15
- Session 74: Open Strategy Workshops: Lessons Learned from Practising Strategizing
- Sun: 09:45 – 11:00
- Session 76: The evolution of the strategy as a profession and the field of strategy
- Sun: 11:15 – 12:30
- Session 81: Mapping current insights on strategy implementation
- Sun: 16:15 – 17:30
- Session 61: The Institutional Level of Strategizing Activities
- Sun: 17:45 – 00:00
- Session 318: Strategy Practice Business Meeting
- Mon: 08:00 – 09:15
- Session 62: Multi-level perspectives on capability development
- Mon: 13:45 – 15:00
- Session 63: Political and Material Aspects of Strategy Making
- Tue: 11:00 – 12:15
- Session 64: Strategic Renewal through Practical Engagement
- Tue: 14:15 – 15:30
- Session 65: Strategy Practice, Identity and Sensemaking
- Tue: 15:45 – 17:00
- Session 66: Building Nonmarket Strategic Capability
- Tue: 17:30 – 18:45
- Session 60: Blurring the Boundaries of Strategy Work
- Sun: 08:00 – 09:15
- Session 276: K&I Sunday Panel: Big Data & Analytics in Strategy
- Sun: 09:45 – 11:00
- Session 277: K&I Foundations Session: A Conversation with Dan Levinthal
- Sun: 11:15 – 12:30
- Session 278: K&I Sunday Panel: Knowledge and Innovation in models of Business Models
- Sun: 16:15 – 17:30
- Session 104: Resource Allocation and Innovation
- Session 261: Knowledge Creation and Sharing in Virtual Communities
- Sun: 17:45 – 00:00
- Session 317: Knowledge and Innovation Business Meeting
- Mon: 08:00 – 09:15
- Session 62: Multi-level perspectives on capability development
- Session 105: Sourcing Strategies for Knowledge
- Session 256: Innovation and the Strategy-Performance Relationship
- Mon: 11:15 – 12:30
- Session 203: Post Acquisition Learning
- Session 204: Acquiring human capital: Process and outcomes
- Mon: 13:45 – 15:00
- Session 107: Evolving Industries, Evolving Products
- Session 205: Knowledge Recombination and Interdependencies
- Mon: 16:45 – 18:00
- Session 100: Innovation Management in Networks, Ecosystems, and Innovation Hubs
- Session 200: Strategic Leadership, Learning, and Exploration
- Tue: 08:00 – 09:15
- Session 136: Innovating and Learning in Collaborative Alliances
- Session 255: Processes for Innovation and Ideation
- Tue: 11:00 – 12:15
- Session 101: Strategic Patenting
- Session 137: Entrepreneurial Experience and Cognition: Implications for Venture Performance
- Tue: 14:15 – 15:30
- Session 198: Emerging Market Strategies
- Session 206: Knowledge Replication, Transfer and Absorption
- Tue: 15:45 – 17:00
- Session 17: Human Capital and Entrepreneurship
- Session 108: Open Innovation: Antecedents and Performance Effects
- Session 262: Pioneering Knowledge
- Tue: 17:30 – 18:45
- Session 60: Blurring the Boundaries of Strategy Work
- Session 202: Team Dynamics and Creativity
- Session 271: Spinouts