Introduction to the Research Platform: A Special Topic Forum on Developing the Dynamic Capabilities of Global Companies Across Levels and Locations

• Author: Stephen Tallman
• Date: 01 August 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/gsj.1123
• Published date: 01 August 2016

INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH PLATFORM: A

SPECIAL TOPIC FORUM ON DEVELOPING THE

DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES OF GLOBAL COMPANIES

ACROSS LEVELS AND LOCATIONS

STEPHEN TALLMAN

*

Robins School of Business, Universityof Richmond, Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A.

This issue of Global Strategy Journal is largely filled

with a Special Topic Forum (STF) edited by David

Teece, Don Lessard, and Sohvi Leih. I will leave it

to the STF editors to introducetheir articles, but I offer

a quick explanat ion of just what this particula r

Research Platform is and what it is intended to do.

This is not a Special Issue. Papers for thoseare sought

through an open call for papers and are edited and

reviewed using a double-blind review process. The

papers for this SpecialTopic Forum were chosen from

among those invited by the STF editors in a process

that began with a conversation between David Teece

and the late Alan Rugman after a panel discussion at

the Academy of International Business 2014 Annual

Conference in Vancouver, B.C. The combination of

Professor Teece’s concept of Dynamic Capabilities

(Teece, Pisano, and Shuen, 1997) and Professor

Rugman’s ideas about firm- and country-specific

advantages (Rugman and Verbeke, 2001) sparked

the idea for the STF that was presented to me by

Professor Teece shortly after Alan’s untimely death.

A number of distinguished scholars with interests

in capabilities, international strategy topics, or both

were invited to make proposals, and after almost two

years of winnowing, cajoling, writing, cajoling,

rewriting, and more cajoling, the resulting articles

are offered for your consideration in this issue. In my

estimation,the authors have delivered fine work,more

than upholding their reputations for thoughtful analy-

sis and deep consideration of important topics. I had

originallyproposed that we look for short papers more

in the line of Research Notes, but as the STF has

evolved, I recognized that artificially constraining

such interesting work was hardly conducive to

pushing the international strategy conversation

forward. As a result, you will find these articles to be

fully developed and forward-looking discussions of

how dynamic capabilities might appear in and be

applied by global firms. I trust that you will find these

works to be as thought provoking as I have.

This STF is tied closelyto our joint editorial vision

for Global Strategy Journal as a leading institution in

global strategic management. As stated in the intro-

duction to the Research Platform concept (Tallman

and Pedersen, 2012: 313-317), ‘…‘research platform

content’is intended to offer, support, or encourage

[intuitive] leaps…to open doorways to new research

paths.’We trust that this forum encourages readers

to consider howthey might follow the several research

paths suggested by the authors. The forum also pro-

vides multiple examples of how mainstream strategy

theory—dynamic capabilities, but also other theories

of the firm and strategy—can be developed through

application to multinational firms in the global busi-

ness environment. Again, we anticipate that these

efforts can provide models and encouragement for

future approaches to global strategy research.

Finally, the articles in the STF address issues

critical to global strategy, that is, strategy set in and

addressing worldwide strategic issues. Concepts in-

clude both ‘global,’or uniform worldwide, strategies

and ‘local,’or locally adapted, strategies. Discussions

*Correspondence to: StephenTallman, University of Richmond,

Robins School of Business, 1 Gateway Rd., Richmond, VA

23173, U.S.A.E-mail: Stallman@richmond.edu

Global Strategy Journal

Global StrategyJournal, 6:163–164 (2016)

Published onlinein Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/gsj.1123

Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society