Desperately seeking industrial digital strategy: a dynamic capability approach

Abstract

This study focuses on managers' perceptions of organisational capabilities for strategy formulation related to industrial digitalisation. A qualitative case study based on ten interviews in two manufacturing companies explores managers' perceptions of industrial digitalisation. A dynamic capability framework, consisting of the organisational capabilities sensing, seizing, and transforming opportunities, is applied to recognise and analyse nuances in managers' interpretation of prevailing organisational capabilities. Findings reveal that the studied companies have a limited maturity concerning knowledge, skills, and resources for industrial digitalisation which is needed in order to formulate a digital strategy. An additional core capability was discerned, i.e., 'seeking'. Seeking includes actions for articulating, appropriating, and involving in the very early phases of understanding and formulating a digital strategy. This article contributes to the existing dynamic capability framework by adding the core capability seeking illustrated in an elaborated and holistic 'dynamic capability loop'. The loop frames industrial digitalisation as a continuous process closely integrated with strategy formulation.