Professor Adam Lindgreen publishes article on dynamic capabilities
New research, authored by Professor Adam Lindgreen at Copenhagen Business School—together with colleagues Dr. Helen Borland at Aston Business School, Professor Véronique Ambrosini at Monash University, and Professor Joëlle Vanhamme at Edhec Business School—has examined dynamic capabilities in order to build theory at the intersection of ecological sustainability and strategic management literature.
Explains Professor Lindgreen: “By combining industrial organization economics–based, resource-based, and dynamic capability–based views, we believe we can develop a better understanding of the strategies that businesses may follow, depending on their managers’ assumptions about ecological sustainability.”
“But,” continues Professor Lindgreen, “to develop innovative strategies for ecological sustainability, the dynamic capabilities framework needs to be extended. In particular, the sensing–seizing–maintaining competitiveness framework should operate not only within the boundaries of a business ecosystem but in relation to global biophysical ecosystems; in addition, two more dynamic capabilities should be added, namely, remapping and reaping.”
The framework developed can explicate core managerial beliefs about ecological sustainability, and, continues Professor Lindgreen, “our approach offers interesting opportunities for managers to identify, categorize, and exploit business strategies for ecological sustainability. For example, managers can use our descriptions of strategies for ecological sustainability and ecocentric dynamic capabilities to assess where an enterprise stands and how to develop a transformational strategy, should they embrace ecocentric views. Managers also can identify which parts of their business’s value chain operate in eco-effective or eco-efficient manners. Thus, improved ecocentric dynamic capabilities can help leaders and managers achieve their transformational strategy goals.”
Professor Lindgreen and colleagues are continuing their research along a number of avenues: “We are working to observe and measure business activities to distinguish between the transitional and transformational strategies that firms adopt. Testing the ecocentric dynamic capabilities framework, however, may be challenging, because of the need to find firms willing to adopt a transformational approach.” However, as the increased costs of doing business associated with resource depletion, problematic waste disposal, environmental degradation, species extinction, and devastating weather patterns become more widespread, firms willing to adopt, as well as those actively seeking, new strategic approaches likely will increase in number, predicts Professor Lindgreen.
Read the full article here: Borland, H., Ambrosini, V., Lindgreen, A., and Vanhamme, J. (2016), “Building theory at the intersection of ecological sustainability and strategic management”, Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 135, No. 2, pp. 293-307. DOI 10.1007/s10551-014-2471-6.