Making use of dynamic capabilities to address the sustainability challenge

Abstract

Manufacturing firms are increasingly exposed to pressures coming from the sustainability challenge. A thorough understanding of these drivers is important in order for firms to be able to react to the sustainability challenge. Since the sustainability challenge creates dynamic market conditions, dynamic capabilities are believed to be a key for firms in dealing with that dynamism. Knowledge-related dynamic capabilities appear to be particularly important in supporting firms to find solutions to the challenge. However, to the best of our knowledge, empirical evidence is rather limited so far. Therefore, it is the goal of this paper to examine these drivers and assess dynamic capabilities in the light of the sustainability challenge. Four case studies with multinational manufacturing firms provide empirical findings.