Dynamic Capabilities

Creating, adapting to, and exploiting change is inherently entrepreneurial. To survive and prosper under conditions of change, firms must develop the “dynamic capabilities” to create, extend, and modify the ways in which they operate. The capacity of an organization to create, extend, or modify its resource base is vital.

Since the concept of dynamic capabilities was first introduced, much research has elaborated the initial idea. This important book by Constance Helfat and her team of leading scholars provides a timely focus on in-depth examples of corporate dynamic capabilities. Examining these in the different contexts of alliances, acquisitions, and management, the book gives students and researchers a succinct, up-to-date definition of dynamic capabilities and the strategic management theories around them.

List of Figures vi

Notes on Contributors vii

Preface xi

1. Dynamic Capabilities: Foundations 1

2. Managers, Markets, and Dynamic Capabilities 19

3. Dynamic Capabilities and Organizational Processes 30

4. Executives, Dynamic Capabilities, and Strategic Change 46

5. Relational Capabilities: Drivers and Implications 65

6. Acquisition-Based Dynamic Capabilities 80

7. Firm Growth and Dynamic Capabilities 100

8. Dynamic Capabilities: Future Paths and Possibilities 115

Glossary of Terms 121
List of Company Examples 123
References 124
Author Index 138
Subject Index 142

Constance E. Helfat is the J. Brian Quinn Professor in Technology and Strategy at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Professor Helfat focuses her research on firm capabilities and knowledge, involving technological innovation and adaptation and change of firm capabilities over time.

Sydney Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Will Mitchell is the J. Rex Fuqua Professor of International Management and Professor of Strategy at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Margaret A. Peteraf is Professor of Strategic Management and Organization at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Harbir Singh is the William and Phyllis Mack Professor at the Wharton School, and the Co-Director of the Mack Center for Technological Innovation. David J. Teece is the Mitsubishi Bank Professor and Director of the Institute of Management, Innovation and Organization, Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. Sidney G. Winter is the Deloitte and Touche Professor of Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Creating, adapting to, and exploiting change is inherently entrepreneurial. To survive and prosper under conditions of change, firms must develop the “dynamic capabilities” to create, extend, and modify the ways in which they operate. The capacity of an organization to create, extend, or modify its resource base is vital.

Since the concept of dynamic capabilities was first introduced, much research has elaborated the initial idea. This important book by Constance Helfat and her team of leading scholars provides a timely focus on in-depth examples of corporate dynamic capabilities. Examining these in the different contexts of alliances, acquisitions, and management, the book gives students and researchers a succinct, up-to-date definition of dynamic capabilities and the strategic management theories around them.