Introduction

Abstract

The paper “Linking learning, customer value, and resource investment decisions: Developing dynamic capabilities” by Graham Hubbard, Angelina Zubac, and Lester Johnson suggests that strategic capabilities are developed when market learning processes are directly integrated into a firm's investment processes. Explicitly linking market learning processes and resource investment decisions is essential in building and maintaining competitive advantage. Based on a broad theoretical exploration, this paper presents six derived hypotheses about learning and dynamic capabilities development:H1Successful firms have higher levels of dynamic capabilities than less successful firms.H2Dynamic capabilities are more important and better developed in successful firms in dynamic markets than in mature markets.H3Successful firms learn more about customer value than do less successful firms.H4Managerial perceptions of how customer value can be created are more aligned in successful firms than less successful firms.H5Resource investment decision making is more aligned with market learning processes in successful firms than less successful firms.H6Firms in dynamic markets are more oriented to customer learning than those in mature markets.The paper argues that previous work on analyzing capabilities of organizations has not been directly linked to how firms actually learn, specifically about customers and about ways of creating customer value. Yet it is the process of learning about customers that is critical for creating value for customers and for targeting investments in resources that support the activities and processes necessary to create and deliver that value. The integration of learning about customers into resource investment decision processes is thus argued to be critical to the creation of firm value and to the development of dynamic capability in an organization.

Citation

Heene, A., Martens, R. and Sanchez, R. (2008), "Introduction", Heene, A., Martens, R. and Sanchez, R. (Ed.) Advances in Applied Business Strategy (Advances in Applied Business Strategy, Vol. 10), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-6826(07)10011-1