David J. Teece, Gary Pisano and Amy Shuen (1997)
Strategic Management Journal, Vol. 18:7 509-533.
Focus, Methods and Motivation of This Paper
 Focus: How do firms achieve and sustain competitive advantage?
 Motivation: Strategic theory replete with analyses of firm-level strategies for sustaining and
safeguarding extent competitive advantage. Not enough research on how and why firms build
competitive advantage in regimes of rapid change.
(Question: Is asking “Why” on existing theory a way to develop new topic?)
 Methods: Develop the dynamic capabilities approach; approach relevant in a Schumpeterian
world of innovation-based competition, price/performance rivalry, increasing returns and
“creative destruction” of existing competences.
Notes about the Methods
 Joseph Alois Schumpeter (8 February 1883 – 8 January 1950)was an Austrian-American economist
and political scientist. He popularized the term "creative destruction" in economics.
 Creative destruction is a term originally derived from Marxist Economic Theory which refers to the
linked processes of the accumulation and annihilation [ə'naɪəleɪt] of wealth under capitalism.
 Important work:
Evolutionary economics
History of Economic Analysis
Business cycles
Schumpeter and Keynesianism
Schumpeter and capitalism's demise
Schumpeter and democratic theory
Schumpeter and entrepreneurship
Schumpeter and Innovation
Schumpeter and the Gold Standard
Structure of This Paper
 Review of Existing and Accepted Framework
 Dynamic Capabilities Framework
 Conclusions
 Future Research
Review of Existed and Accepted Framework
 Model 1 – The exploration of Market Power
Competitive Forces
entry barriers; threat of substitution; bargaining power of buyers; bargaining power of suppliers; rivalry
among industry incumbents – determine the inherent profit potential of an industry or sub-segment of an
industry
Strategic Conflict
How firms can influence the behavior and actions of rival firms and thus the market environment?
By manipulating the market environment, a firm may be able to increase its profits.
Game Theory – where competitors do not have deep-seated competitive advantages, the moves and countermoves of
competitors can often be usefully formulated in game-theoretical terms
 Model 2 – Efficiency
Resource-Based Perspective
This approach sees firms with superior systems and structures being profitable not because they engage in strategic
investments that may deter entry and raise prices, but because they have markedly lower costs, or offer markedly higher
quality or product performance
Dynamic Capabilities – Framework introduced in this paper
Dynamics – the capacity to renew competences so as to achieve congruence with the changing business environment
For an innovating firm in a world of Schumpeterian competition – identify difficult-to-imitate internal and external competences is most likely to support
valuable products and services
Framework of “Dynamic Capabilities Framework”
 Terminology
 Market and Strategic Capabilities
 Process, Positions and Paths
 Reliability and Imitatability of Organizational Process and Positions
(Prof., in the paper, it is written imitatability, but why it is not in google?)
Dynamic Capabilities Framework - Terminology
 Factors of production
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Undifferentiated inputs available in disaggregate form in factor markets
Lacking firm-specific component
Resources
Firm-specific assets
Difficult to imitate
Difficult to transfer among firms
Organizational routines/competences
Distinctive activities when firm-specific assets are assembled in integrated clusters
Core competences
Competences that define a firm’s fundamental business as core
Dynamic capabilities
The firm’s ability to integrate, build and reconfigure internal and external competences to address rapidly
changing environments
Products
Final goods and services produced by the firm based on utilizing the competences that it possesses
Dynamic Capabilities Framework - Market and
Strategic Capabilities
 Where is the foundations upon which distinctive and difficult-to-replicate
advantages can be built, maintained, and enhanced?
 Identify “what is NOT strategic” ?
 Homogeneous product, firms that undergirds competitive advantage, why?
- Distinctions between markets and internal organizations.
- Firms are domains for organizing activity in a nonmarket-like fashion
 Entrepreneurial activity cannot lead to the immediate replication of unique
organization skills through simply entering a market and piecing the parts
together overnight – replication takes time
Dynamic Capabilities Framework – Process of the
(Process, Positions and Paths)
Organizational and Managerial Processes
 Coordination/integration (a static concept)
Internal and external
Often display high levels of coherence
The frequent failure of incumbents to introduce new technologies results from the mismatch of
organizational processes
 Learning (a dynamic concept)
A process by which repetition and experimentation enable tasks to be performed better and quicker,
and enables new production opportunities to be identified
 Reconfiguration and transformation
Firms must develop process to minimize low pay-off
The ability to scan the environment, to evaluate markets and competitors, to quickly accomplish
reconfiguration and transformation ahead of competition
Dynamic Capabilities Framework – Position of the
(Process, Positions and Paths)
 Positions
Technological assets: Ownership protection and utilization of technology assets are key differentiators
among firms
Complementary assets: Typically lie downstream
Financial assets: what a firm can do in short order = F(Balance Sheet)
Reputational assets: a summarize of infor. about firms and
Structural assets: The formal/informal structure of organizations
Institutional assets: Public policy; institution a critical element of the business environment
Market (structure) assets: Product market position, important but often overplayed
Organizational Boundaries: tech; complementary asset, coordination
Dynamic Capabilities Framework – Paths of the
(Process, Positions and Paths)
Paths
 Path dependencies – F(current position, the path ahead)
1, “History matters.
2, Learning is a process of trial, feedback and evaluation.
transaction and production specific
past investments and routines constrain the firm’s future behavior
3, The “lock-in” degree caused by switching cost = F(user learning, repidity of tech change; amount of ferment
in the competitive environment, etc. )
 Technological opportunities
Tech opportunities not completely exogenous to industry; can be firm-specific; firms looking at different choices
 Assessment
Firm – a sum of its parts; shift in environment = serious threat
Dynamic Capabilities Framework - Reliability and
Imitatability of Organizational Process and Positions
 Reliability
1, Involves transferring or redeploying competences from one concrete economic setting to another.
2, Competences and capabilities and the routines they rest on, are difficult to replicate.
3, Routines and competences - attributable to local or regional forces that shape firms’ capabilities at early stages in their
lives
4, Two types of strategic value flow from replication: a) the ability to support geographic and product line expansion
b) the indication that the firm has the foundations in place for
learning and improvement
 Imitation
1, If self-replication is difficult, imitation is likely to be harder – factors make replication harder make imitation harder
2, Barrier impedes imitation – Intellectual property rights protection, e.g., patents, trade secrets, trade-marks, trade-dress
3, Should not over estimate the overall importance of intellectual property protection.
4, Use “Appropriability” to measure the ease of imitation. A = F(ease of replication; the efficacy of intellectual property
rights as a barrier to imitation)
Conclusions
Conclusions
Efficiency vs. Market Power
 Except in special circumstances, too much “Strategizing” can lead firms to underinvest in core competences
and neglect dynamic capabilities and thus harm long-term competitiveness.
Normative Implications: capabilities approach tends to steer managers toward creating distinctive and difficult to
imitate advantages and avoiding games with customers and competitors
 Unit of Analysis and Analytic focus - in capabilities/ resources/ conflict framework, strategy analysis must be
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situational.
Strategic Change – Competitive/conflict framework see strategic choice occurring with relative facility
Entry Strategy – “Resources/ capabilities framework” “entry decision” “competences, capabilities and
competition ”
Entry Timing - “Resources/ capabilities framework” “interaction between specialized assets and rivalry”
Diversification - “Resources/ capabilities framework” meritorious; Conflict framework more permissive
Focus and specialization – Capabilities framework, internal process, F(assets, how to play, how to deploy and
redeploy)
Future Research
 Further theoretical research needed to tighten the framework
 Empirical test needed to help people understand how the framework works
 Suggestions from the Author:
Strategy researchers cooperate with researchers in the fields of Innovation,
Manufacturing, Organizational Behavior and Business History.