Search results

This study provides theoretical and empirical insights into how firms can enhance their performance strategically and financially by integrating learning and transformational capabilities into research and development (R&D) activities based on the dynamic capabilities approach. To achieve this, the authors propose that transformational capabilities in R&D mediate the relationship between learning capabilities in R&D and competitive advantage.

Using a purposive sampling technique and standardized questionnaires, data were collected from 118 R&D and senior managers. To analyze the data, multiple regression analysis, along with SPSS PROCESS macro (Model 4), was used.

The results support the theoretical assumption that there are direct and indirect positive and significant effects between learning capabilities in R&D and competitive advantage as mediated by transformational R&D capabilities.

This study explores R&D from a dynamic capabilities perspective and suggests that learning capabilities should come first to enhance businesses’ competitive advantage. Furthermore, transformational R&D capabilities can explain the relationship between learning capabilities in R&D and competitive advantage. The authors recommend that researchers should investigate the contributions of R&D to promote competitive advantage.

It has been argued that a firm's capacity to learn from its market is a source of both innovation and competitive advantage. However, past research has failed to conceptualize market‐focused learning activity as a capability having the potential to contribute to competitive advantage. Prior innovation research has been biased toward technological innovation. However, there is evidence to suggest that both technological and non‐technological innovations contribute to competitive advantage reflecting the need for a broader conceptualization of the innovation construct. Past research has also overlooked the critical role of entrepreneurship in the capability building process. Competitive advantage has been predominantly measured in terms of financial indicators of performance. In general, the literature reflects the need for comprehensive measures of organizational innovation and competitive advantage. This paper examines the role of market‐focused learning capability in organizational innovation‐based competitive strategy. The paper contributes to the strategic marketing theory by developing and refining measures of entrepreneurship, market‐focused learning capability, organizational innovation and sustained competitive advantage, testing relationships among these constructs.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the overarching role of learning capabilities by presenting a framework to describe how learning capability development is captured by combining the three main elements of internal marketing orientation, exploratory capabilities and resource recombination.

This is a conceptual paper building upon the theoretical integration approach of Mayer and Sparrowe (2013) to establish competitive empowerment through learning capability development, effective internal response and resources recombination.

The competitive learning capability model provides a firm’s foundation for theorizing organizational competitive models from an internal perspective, by mastering learning capability development at the centre of the model.

The paper emphasizes the competitive connotation of learning capabilities as a construct in strategic management. It shows the underlying role of learning across organizational processes; hence, its theoretical significance through the learning capabilities model.

This paper argues that learning is at the centre of organizational competitiveness. Firms can achieve more fruitful results by continuously implementing resource integration strategies built on their learned experiences.

The principal significance of this paper lies in the achievement of conceptualizing learning from a strategic management perspective. Insight in this area helps bridge organizational efforts in pursuit of competitive advantage by exploiting key core learning competencies embedded in a firm’s resources and capabilities.

The purpose of this study was to investigate and explain the factors contributing to supply chain agility in service-oriented firms and therein to enhance competitive capabilities of the organization. The study has identified various variables from past studies that support firms in developing agile supply chain operations. Factors identified from prior studies are supply chain flexibility, supply chain visibility, supply chain responsiveness, supply chain speed and learning orientation, which were then empirically tested for further understanding.

Using purposive sampling, a sample of 217 valid responses was gathered through structured questionnaire from supply chain practitioners working in various service industries of Pakistan. Partial least square-structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The results of the study show that learning orientation and flexibility of the service firm highly complement the goal of achieving agility in their operations. Speed and visibility also have a major impact on developing agile supply chain. Moreover, supply chain agility has a significantly positive impact on competitive capabilities.

This research is about investigating the operational agility of services sector, which is a one-off study especially in the context of developing and competitive market. This research will provide important insights into the context of dynamic capabilities view for policymakers and decision-makers who aim to develop their competitive strategies based on their operational agility.

The agribusiness sector has long been acknowledged as a major source of livelihood to many people in developing countries. Hence, determining the resources and capabilities influencing farm-level competitive advantage are vital to better understand and formulate appropriate strategies to increase the competitiveness ofminor export crops farms. This study aims to understand of the link between resources-capabilities-competitive advantage for appropriate measures to be recommended to enhance the competitive position of the smallholding farms.

This study adopts the resource-based view in combination with dynamic capabilities. The scope comprises owners of farms who possess experience in commercial cultivation of minor export crops in Sri Lanka. A self-administrated structured questionnaire was used to collect data.

Based on the responses from 456 farm owners, results of the multiple regression analysis indicate that variables representing resources such as human assets, physical assets, financial assets, institutional capital, collective action and entrepreneurial identity; and dynamic capabilities such as organisational learning, relationship building, quality management and marketing are significantly associated with competitive advantage of the minor export crops farms. Reputation and farm process management capability are the only two insignificant variables. Taken together, the resources and dynamic capabilities investigated explain 89.3 per cent of the variation in competitive advantage, in which 82 per cent is contributed by resources.

The findings provide useful insights not only in terms of understanding the link between resources, dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage but also how resources and capabilities can be channelled and leveraged to bring about competitive advantage to the minor export crops farms. Theoretical and practical implications as well as future research directions are provided.

Open strategy is a new paradigm that has more benefit to business especially small ones. The aim of this research is to clear this proposition that in the age of digital transformation adopting open strategy paradigm will help business to attain competitive advantage. To this purpose, two main variables that have capability in the mentioned new paradigm, learning and innovation, came into focus. Based on a standard questionnaire, data were gathered from high-tech Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are active in Tehran science and technology parks. Reliability of the instrument was confirmed at an appropriate level. Data were analyzed based on structural equation modeling and results have shown the positive effect of learning on innovation and competitive advantage, and between innovation and competitive advantages. These findings indicate that SMEs must pay close attention to the nature, dimensions, dynamics, and elements of open strategy to attain competitive advantage in the VUCA¹ world.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the need for developing pricing capability (PC) for business-to-business firms to effectively manage and execute the pricing activities in the organization and succeed in a competitive market. Using the firms’ resource-based view, organizational learning theory and organizational capabilities literature, this study develops a conceptual framework in which market-focused learning and firm innovativeness are potential antecedents of PC and pricing value and business performance (BP) are consequences.

The authors conducted an online e-mail-based survey to collect primary cross-sectional data from the 127 Indian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The partial least squares structural equation modeling technique was used to empirically validate a conceptual framework as well as the research hypotheses.

The findings indicate that market-focused learning and firm innovativeness have a substantial influence on PC, which in turn positively affects both pricing value and BP. Moreover, pricing value demonstrates a partial mediating effect on the link between PC and BP.

This research has certain limitations, namely, using cross-sectional data and limited sample size. More empirical research on the antecedents of PC is required.

The empirical findings enlighten the SMEs on the significance of developing specialized PC in delivering superior pricing value to customers and achieving greater BP.

The existing literature lacks empirical data on the development and antecedents of PC, particularly in the SME context. The current study empirically examines the impact of market-focused learning and firm innovativeness on PC.

A growing body of literature on organizational learning suggests that companies or organizations with a learning capability can gain a competitive advantage. The argument is that learning organizations are better at knowledge transfer and generating new knowledge to solve problems. The objective of this study is to examine empirically if learning companies are more competitive and better performers than their competitors.

This study examines a portfolio of learning companies and a set of their competitors, looking at their financial performance over a significant period. Learning companies were selected based on content analysis of the published literature. Competitors were selected from an existing top 500 companies listing matched to the learning company's business domain. This study compares their performance using both market and accounting financial data.

The data show that learning companies demonstrate strong performance in financial markets over time, beating the traditional market indexes in both bull and bear markets. The accounting data show similar results. On a majority of the financial measures, the long‐term financial performance of learning companies is significantly superior to that of their closest competitors.

This study discusses and explores the implications of these results in studying the link between learning companies and organizational performance. A limitation of the study is the small sample size of learning companies in the study. Also some potential alternative explanations for their performance cannot be completely ruled out due to the longitudinal nature of the study.

This study shows that there is a positive link between learning capability and competitive advantage, as measured by long‐term market financial performance of a group of learning companies.

The purpose of this paper is to identify integrated solutions business as the first generation of servitized offerings and modular solution offerings as the second development phase in servitization of original equipment manufacturers. This study examines how the servitized manufacturer, Kone, moves from integrated solutions to modular solutions business and develops the requisite capabilities to design, produce and implement modular solution offerings.

The paper reports a longitudinal case study of a provider of integrated solutions installed in buildings. During the ten years studied, the manufacturer implemented a strategic initiative to modularize its integrated solutions offering.

The firm’s transition to modular solutions progressed through three major capability development phases: solutions based on ad hoc integration, smart solutions based on modular design and through-chain modularity. The modular structure aims at fostering the efficiency of the solution offering and the associated production system.

Leveraging the benefits of modularity calls for an aligned combination of strategic, operational and technical capabilities contributing to the integration of resources in a modular production system for the solution providers’ competitive performance.

The study reports how a solution provider can develop the operational capabilities to integrate the core and peripheral components into the solution, and orchestrate the modular production system.

This study is a rare longitudinal analysis of how a manufacturer builds a modular offering, the solution platform and the required competitive capabilities to provide the solution.

This study aims to present a conceptual framework for understanding the dual orientations of market-based organizational learning (MBOL), namely, market orientation (MO) and learning orientation (LO), in the development of pricing capability (PC) with the goal of improving business performance (BP). This framework further explores the moderating effects of coordination mechanism (CM) and environmental dynamism (ED) on the PC–BP link and the mediating role of PC on the relationship between MBOL and BP.

This study applied the partial least squares structural equation modeling on survey data from 298 Indian small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in manufacturing and service sectors.

The findings indicate that MBOL significantly contributes to PC development, which in turn improves BP. Interestingly, PC acts as a partial mediator in the MO–BP link, as well as LO–BP link. Moreover, CM and ED strengthen the effect of PC on BP. Finally, MO and LO have substantial and distinct effects on PC and BP.

This study examines only one market-related capability, i.e. PC, considers multi-industry SMEs rather than specific large industries and uses cross-sectional instead of longitudinal data.

These findings are crucial from managerial standpoints because SMEs need to understand the MBOL dimensions, including MO and LO, and their significance in improving PC and BP.

Understanding how MBOL adoption contributes to superior performance is critical, but research in the SMEs context is still lacking. This study addresses a research gap by examining the impact of MBOL on BP, both directly and indirectly, through PC in the context of SMEs.