قابلیت های پویا، پویایی محیط زیست، و مزیت رقابتی: مدارک و شواهد از کشور چین

Some scholars hold that dynamic capability is one of the key in searching for competitive advantage in strategic management. But there are still debates on the definition and effects of dynamic capabilities and the role of environmental dynamism. In the context of Chinese-like emerging economies, from a strategic process perspective, this study defines dynamic capability as the firms' potential to systematically solve problems, formed by its propensity to sense opportunities and threats, to make timely decisions, and to implement strategic decisions and changes efficiently to ensure the right direction, and also explores the relationship between dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage and, the role environmental dynamism plays. With an empirical study of 217 enterprises in China, this study finds that dynamic capabilities do significantly positively affect competitive advantage, and environmental dynamism is a driver rather than a moderator.

To gain a competitive advantage is the “Holy Grail” of strategic management research (Helfat & Peteraf, 2009, p. 91). But with the ongoing global financial crisis, climate change and other worldwide problems, enterprises find that to obtain and maintain competitive advantage is increasingly difficult, only temporary advantages are possible (D'Aveni, Dagnino, & Smith, 2010). Some scholars explain the cornerstones of competitive advantage from the resource-based view (RBV) (Barney, 1991, Peteraf, 1993 and Wernerfelt, 1984), but recently, the increasingly volatile environment challenges the original propositions of the RBV as being static and neglecting the influence of market dynamism (Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000, Priem and Butler, 2001 and Wang and Ahmed, 2007), and scholars put forward a number of dynamic concepts, such as absorptive capacity, integrative capacity, construct capacity, higher order capacity and so on to explore and explain the ways toward success. Based on the demands in practice and the findings in RBV, evolutionary economics and behavior theory, Teece, Pisano and Shuen (1997) extend RBV to the context of dynamic environment and propose that enterprises should constantly adapt, reconfigure and renew their resources and capabilities to address environmental change, which is now the universal concept of dynamic capabilities. However, as a field of research domain, dynamic capabilities research is still in its infancy (Di Stefano et al., 2010 and Helfat and Peteraf, 2009). Current studies focus on the definition, antecedents, nature, processes and consequences of dynamic capabilities (Ambrosini et al., 2009, Easterby-Smith et al., 2009, Helfat et al., 2007, Katkalo et al., 2010, Loasby, 2010, Teece, 2007, Zahra et al., 2006, Zollo and Winter, 2002 and Zott, 2003), with sharp conflicts regarding to the definitions and effects of dynamic capabilities, and the role environmental dynamism plays. The growing research on dynamic capabilities provides successive and distinct definitions, which create confusion over the meaning and utility of the construct (Barreto, 2010, Di Stefano et al., 2010 and Helfat and Winter, 2011). Some scholars believe that dynamic capabilities are the key to competitive advantage (Ambrosini and Bowman, 2009, Helfat and Peteraf, 2009, Helfat et al., 2007, Teece, 2007 and Teece et al., 1997), while some others argue that dynamic capabilities do not manifest the characteristics of heterogeneity, thus cannot be a source of competitive advantage (Arend and Bromiley, 2009 and Eisenhardt and Martin, 2000), and the role of dynamic capabilities is limited (Zott, 2003) and indirect (Wang & Ahmed, 2007). Many researchers claim that environmental dynamism plays an important moderating role between dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage (Romme et al., 2010 and Wu, 2010), while others believe that environmental dynamism is an important driving force of dynamic capabilities (Teece, 2007). Previous studies in this area mainly focus on firms operating in Western developed markets and little is known about what dynamic capability is and its relationship with performance in transition economies. Since there are many differences between developed markets and transition economies, this narrow focus limits theoretical completeness and is a significant gap in the literature. Thus, the study uses China as a testing ground for the universality of the Western-generated theory for three reasons: China's size in population and organizations, its vast differences from Western societies, and its increasing integration into the world economy (Lin & Germain, 2003). To address these research gaps, this study explores the definition and effects of dynamic capabilities and, the role of environmental dynamism in the emerging economy of China. As such, this research contributes to existing literature by entailing the new research context: China, and clarifies the debates on the effect of dynamic capabilities and the role of environmental dynamism. The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 presents focal constructs of interest and the relationships among them and develops related hypotheses. Section 3 then outlines the study methodology, and Section 4 shows the empirical results. Finally, the paper presents discussions and conclusions of the findings.

This study contributes to the literature in the following ways. The first is pertaining to the definition and dimensions of dynamic capabilities at the theoretical approach in the Chinese-like emerging economies. The importance of an adequate definition of dynamic capabilities for the development of the field could not be greater (Barreto, 2010). In China, because of the inadequate market and legal support, dysfunctional competitive behavior of firms is widespread, the definition and dimensions of dynamic capabilities are not quite the same as Western countries. This study uses an adapted definition of Barreto (2010) not only to overcome major criticisms, but also to fit better with the Chinese context. The second contribution is the empirical corroboration that dynamic capabilities are also relevant for the Chinese-like emerging economies. The literature suggests that Western-generated theories may not be fully applicable to societies with vastly different socioeconomic conditions (Lin & Germain, 2003). Theoretical and empirical examination of the theory's applicability and necessary adjustment in China is a meaningful endeavor. As an emerging economy, China has many features in common with other emerging economies. Therefore, empirical findings based on the Chinese context provide important implications for firms operating in other emerging economies (Zhou & Li, 2010). Given that dynamic capabilities also have a significant impact on firms in emerging economies, managers should not excessively worship the decisive role of environmental dynamism, but confidently invest into the development of dynamic capabilities to address environmental changes, avoiding core rigidities and capability traps. Third, this study contributes to the debates on the value of dynamic capabilities and the role of environmental dynamism. The finding shows that dynamic capabilities enable firms to be sensitive to opportunities and threats, seize possible chances and implement change as necessary to enhance environmental adaptability and ultimately, achieve competitive advantage (Doving & Gooderham, 2008). Another significant contribution of this study is the focus on the role of environmental dynamism on the effects of dynamic capabilities, which clarifies the debates on whether environmental dynamism is a moderator or a driver. The results support a driving role, which is consistent with current studies (Oktemgil and Greenley, 1997 and Teece, 2007). The main reason may be that, as the environment becomes more turbulent, firms may be more sensitive and cultivate higher level of dynamic capabilities to cope with (Schindehutte & Morris, 2001) , but the impact of dynamic capabilities on competitive advantage may not necessarily be stronger. Besides, note that environmental dynamism only explains 15% of the variation (see Table 5), indicating some other factors influencing dynamic capabilities. In fact, as an external factor, environmental dynamism just acts as a pusher to dynamic capabilities, many other factors inside the firms may pull the development of dynamic capabilities. Firms may not necessarily form dynamic capabilities just from external pushing pressures, but still need internal pulling forces and subjective efforts. In other words, dynamic capabilities are the results of the co-evolution of internal and external forces (Jacobides & Winter, 2005). This research also contains some limitations. First, this study just explores the definition, dimensions and consequences of general dynamic capabilities. Further researches should explore deep into some specific capabilities, such as dynamic management capacity, alliance capacity, integration capacity, which may be of great value to high performance. Second, based on theoretical assumptions, this study has considered an adapted definition of dynamic capabilities that excludes the “market-orientation” dimension, but has not empirically tested whether this assumption is pertinent. Also, political and relational factors may have important influence on dynamic capabilities, but there is a lack of consideration of such factors in the empirical tests. Third, this study only explains the relationship between dynamic capabilities and competitive advantages, with many other topics remaining unexplored. Future researches may systematically study the individual, organizational, inter-organizational levels about the antecedents, processes, effects and contexts of dynamic capabilities. Fourth, this study only treats firm size and age as control variables but without considering other factors such as corporate ownership, industry category and geographical region. Finally, this study employs static and cross-sectional data, which has inevitable drawbacks in reflecting the function and evolution of dynamic capabilities and competitive advantage. The use of panel data may be the future direction of following-up studies.