Selection Capability: How Capability Gaps and Internal Social Frictions Affect Internal and External Strategic Renewal

Laurence Capron () and Will Mitchell ()
Additional contact information
Laurence Capron: INSEAD, 77305 Fontainebleau, France
Will Mitchell: Fuqua School of Business, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708

Organization Science, 2009, vol. 20, issue 2, 294-312

Abstract: The dynamic capabilities literature suggests that firms need to use both internal development and external sourcing to thrive over time, but we have a limited understanding of the conditions that best suit different sourcing choices. This study examines how constraints that arise from firms' existing stocks of capabilities and from their internal social contexts shape their choices of capability-sourcing modes and, in turn, their ability to obtain new capabilities. Thus, the research focuses on an underemphasized form of dynamic capability: the ability to select appropriate modes of capability sourcing. We test the arguments with a survey and longitudinal survival study of the international telecommunications industry. We find intriguing variations in the way that firms' selection capability influences their ability to renew their capabilities and, ultimately, to survive.

Keywords: modes of capability acquisition; selection capability; resource gap; institutional gap; internal development; external sourcing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (97)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1070.0328 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:20:y:2009:i:2:p:294-312

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Organization Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().