Dynamic Capabilities: Routines versus Entrepreneurial Action

I focus this short note on the role of individual executives in the dynamic capabilities framework. Unlike ordinary capabilities, certain dynamic capabilities may be based on the skills and knowledge of one or a few executives rather than on organizational routines. The thesis advanced here is that, in both large and small enterprises, entrepreneurial (managerial) capitalism is required to establish and sustain superior financial performance. This entrepreneurial management involves not merely the practice and improvement of existing routines or even the creation of new ones. In dynamically competitive enterprises, there is also a critical role for the entrepreneurial manager in both transforming the…