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Managers’ knowledge and customer-focused knowledge management as dynamic capabilities: implications for innovation performance

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Boeing has 100,000 Dell PCs…we have 30 people that live at Boeing….We look more like Boeing’s PC department. We become intimately involved in planning their PC needs and in configuring their network. Virtual integration means you basically stitch together a business with partners that are treated as if they are inside the company.—Michael Dell, HBR interview in 1998.

Abstract

There has been tremendous growth in research on Dynamic Capabilities (DCs) since its inception. However, some aspects such as micro-foundations, path dependence, moderator influences, and applicability in countries such as India have not been explored with sufficient clarity. We contribute by simultaneously examining the impact of managers’ knowledge and Customer-Focused Knowledge Management, respectively, in the process leading to innovation performance. Using survey data from Indian managers, we find support for the theoretical model. We also find support for the moderating impact of intra-firm causal ambiguity. We contribute by showing that a combination of dynamic managerial capabilities and DCs can help organizations in identifying paths to competitive advantage that have higher likelihood of being actionable and lower likelihood of stickiness and irreversibility. We discuss findings, articulate contributions, limitations, and directions for future research.

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Notes

  1. We conceive of customers as different from end users and hence treat customers as distinct entities vis-à-vis focal organizations.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the anonymous reviewers and the Associate Editor for their excellent feedback throughout the review process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Management Programs, Florida Atlantic University, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton, FL, 33431, USA

    C. Lakshman

  2. Department of Organizational Leadership, Utah Valley University, 800, W University PKWY, Orem, UT, 84058, USA

    Sangeetha Lakshman

  3. Department of Management, Winona State University, 175, West Mark Street, Winona, MN, 55987, USA

    Kubilay Gok

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  1. C. Lakshman
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Correspondence to Sangeetha Lakshman.

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Lakshman, C., Lakshman, S. & Gok, K. Managers’ knowledge and customer-focused knowledge management as dynamic capabilities: implications for innovation performance. Asian Bus Manage 22, 246–274 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41291-021-00165-z

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