A new beginning, the same brand

Abstract

Organizational success has been a much debated issue. Many theories were developed through last decades, from the Industrial Organizational model to the Resource-base view. Even with the progress of these theories, there always has been a gap regarding how companies succeed in a dynamic and turbulent environment, and the dynamic capabilities view (DCV) appeared in order to fill this gap. Regarding this view, several scholars developed their own proposals, but for this specific dissertation, the Barreto’s view (2010) was the chosen one not only because it is a recent perspective, but also because it considered the previous theoretical developments and empirical findings. More important, this was arguably the most appropriate view to allow the operationalization of the dynamic capability construct. This thesis intends to illustrate the DCV by using a case study, highlighting how adaptation to context changes can influence a company’s performance. It will be first analyzed how negative can be the impact on a firm if it is not attentive to market changes, and then, it will also be examined how the performance of a firm can be improved significantly by the strengthening of dynamic capabilities. I will answer the following questions: What strategic decisions can lead a well-established company to fail? What factors are critical in a turnaround? How do strategic decisions translate into changes in the resource base? The main findings of the case suggest that the four dimensions of the dynamic capabilities construct are crucial to explain both failure and success of a firm. In addition, it shows that these dimensions are interconnected. No dimension alone can represent the construct. To wrap up, dynamic capabilities can help a firm to achieve success in a turbulent environment and this specific case suggests that the four dimensions included in the dynamic capabilities construct are vital for the achievement of the success.

Date of Award	2 Jul 2013
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Ilídio Barreto (Supervisor)