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Building Organizational and Scientific Platforms in the Pharmaceutical Industry: A Process Perspective on the Development of Dynamic Capabilities
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Building Organizational and Scientific Platforms in the Pharmaceutical Industry: A Process Perspective on the Development of Dynamic Capabilities

V. K. Narayanan, Ken Colwell and Frank L. Douglas
British journal of management, v 20(s1), pp S25-S40
01 Mar 2009
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2008.00611.x
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
url
https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201423969View
SubmittedOpen Access (License Unspecified),  Open

Abstract

Business Business & Economics Management Social Sciences
In this paper, we examine the process of dynamic capability development in a large pharmaceutical firm. Using interviews with multiple managers at different organizational levels, we developed two narratives of the process of developing two separate dynamic capabilities in the same firm. We focus on three areas that prior research has shown to be critical in the early stages of the process of implementing new strategic initiatives: the cognitive orientations of key personnel, managerial action undertaken within the firm, and the firm's internal and external contexts. We provide evidence that managers undertake specific initiatives based on their own particular cognitive orientations, and that senior managers play a major role in the development of capabilities by imprinting the organization with their specific cognitive orientation and then orchestrating the multilevel organizational routines necessary for actualization of a capability. These replicable actions by senior management during the early stages of capability development can lead to the development of a capability that is not initially in the cognitive frames of lower level employees. Finally, we will show that internal and external contingencies have a profound impact on the decision to develop a capability, and to discontinue its development. Our findings thus suggest that the process of developing new capabilities shares common elements with other strategic initiatives.

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87 citations in Web of Science
99 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#9 Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Business
Management
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