Dynamic Capabilities? Unleashing Their Dynamics through a Practice Perspective on Organizational Routines

The current conceptualization of dynamic capabilities entails a paradox, one that hampers the achievement of one of the framework's main missions: While studies on dynamic capabilities claim to offer explanations of continuous, routine-based organizational change, their prevalent conceptualization of organizational routines is rather undynamic and less prone to change. Thus, we propose to draw on an alternative, practice-based understanding of organizational routines to unravel the dynamics of dynamic capabilities. The practice perspective captures and explains the internal dynamics of organizational routines and positions the performance of organizational routines as a source of both organizational stability and change. This perspective offers to deepen our understanding of the dynamics within dynamic capabilities as driver of routine-based organizational change. To foster a research agenda that advances our understanding of dynamic capabilities from a practice perspective on organizational routines, we provide onto-epistemological, theoretical, and methodological implications of such a dynamic view of dynamic capabilities.

Automated summary

The current conceptualization of dynamic capabilities faces a paradox, with prevalent views on organizational routines being static and hindering the framework's main goal. A practice-based perspective offers a deeper understanding of organizational routines' internal dynamics and their role in organizational stability and change. This dynamic view of dynamic capabilities provides insights for advancing research on organizational routines.