Building Technological-Innovation-Based Strategic Capabilities at Firm Level in China: A Dynamic Resource-Based-View Case Study

Abstract

This paper focuses on the 10-year-long practice of mobilizing key resources to build strategic capabilities based on technological innovation in a textile company in China. We propose an analytical framework on the basis of RBV theory and value chain analysis and adopt a dynamic perspective to determine the pattern and process of how different bundles of the key resources contributed to the strategic capabilities in our case company. We found that the firm's technological-innovation-based strategic capabilities were broadly influenced by neither technological resources, nor innovation resources, but organizational culture, human resources and organizational structure, among which human resources is the most dynamic one. For firms with ambition to maintain a high level of strategic capabilities it is imperative they develop and enhance their organizational culture in a flexible organizational environment. For firms with the objective of transforming or transplanting their existing capabilities, it is likely to be effective if they change or transfer the human resources, respectively.