Dynamic capabilities, strategic stakeholder alliances and sustainable competitive advantage: evidence from China

Abstract

PurposeWith increasing research focus paid to dynamic capabilities, there is an increased need to explore how dynamic capabilities can help business firms to realize corporate responsibility with stakeholders for achieving sustainable competitive advantage. The purpose of this paper is to explore the mediation effect of strategic alliance with stakeholders on the relationship between dynamic capabilities and sustainable competitive advantage in China, an emerging market, to give suggestions on how to manage corporate responsibility to address a rapidly changing environment.Design/methodology/approachThe paper tested its hypotheses on a sample in the context of China. Specifically, 700 questionnaires were sent out; 300 were collected, of which 227 were usable. The partial least squares (PLS) structural equation modeling approach was used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.FindingsThe paper has incorporated dynamic capabilities view and corporate responsibility perspective to explain the effects of strategic alliance with different stakeholders to sustainability in emerging markets. The empirical results show that opportunity‐sensing capability, reconfiguration capability and technological flexibility capability have significant impacts on sustainable competitive advantage. Additionally, the finding indicates that the effect of opportunity‐sensing capability on sustainable competitive advantage is fully mediated by strategic alliance with stakeholders. Moreover, the result indicates that the influence of reconfiguration capability on sustainable competitive advantage is partially mediated by strategic alliance with stakeholders. The result indicates that the influence of technological flexibility capability on sustainable competitive advantage is partially mediated by strategic alliance with stakeholders too.Originality/valueCombining theory and evidence from the study, an empirical verification of the links between dynamic capabilities and sustainable competitive advantage in the context of China's emerging economy was conducted. This theme has not yet been studied in the current literature in corporate responsibility. The research suggests that business firms can employ dynamic capabilities to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by means of strategic alliance to meet corporate responsibility to address hyper‐competitive environments.