Dynamic Capabilities: Bridging Diverging Conversations

The concept of dynamic capabilities--an organization’s capacity to adapt to changes in the environment (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000; Teece, Pisano, & Shuen, 1997)--has become a dominant topic in management research (Helfat et al., 2007). Publications are appearing at a rate hardly precedented in the social sciences (Di Stefano, Peteraf, & Verona, 2014). Accordingly, the large body of research has prompted valuable and unique insights into dynamic capabilities (Vogel & Guettel, 2013), yet the understandings of the concept still diverge significantly (Di Stefano, Peteraf, & Verona 2010; 2014). Peteraf, Di Stefano, & Verona (2013) reveal that the field seems to be split into two camps that hardly engage in a joint scholarly discourse. As a consequence, Di Stefano et al. (2014), call for the "bridging of diverging conversations" in order to move the field forward. They propose a model that features five components around which dialogue seems required: (1) the nature of the construct, (2) the agent, (3) the acti...