‘Meso’‐Foundations of Dynamic Capabilities: Team‐Level Synthesis and Distributed Leadership as the Source of Dynamic Creativity
Author | Yusaku Takeda,Ayano Hirose,Ikujiro Nonaka |
Date | 01 August 2016 |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/gsj.1125 |
Published date | 01 August 2016 |
‘MESO’-FOUNDATIONS OF DYNAMIC CAPABILITIES:
TEAM-LEVEL SYNTHESIS AND DISTRIBUTED
LEADERSHIP AS THE SOURCE OF
DYNAMIC CREATIVITY
IKUJIRO NONAKA,
1
AYANO HIROSE,
2
*and YUSAKU TAKEDA
1
1
Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo, Japan
2
College of Business,Rikkyo University, Tokyo, Japan
Plain language summary: Globalization has transformed the international businessenvi-
ronment into an increasingly more complex, uncertain, and diverse entity. Multinational
enterprises are under greater pressure to develop their dynamic capabilities to not only
adapt to, but also proactively cope with, the speed and complexities of the fast-changing
environment. Some research suggeststhat dynamic capabilitiesare closely correlatedwith
top management functions, while counterarguments stress that dynamic capabilities are
embedded in organizational activities. From the perspectiveof organizational knowledge
creation, making a distinction between the creative and adaptive aspects of dynamic
capabilities, this article argues that ‘creative’dynamic capabilities are rooted in the
activitiesof teams in middle levels ofthe organization. Thearticle also presentsleadership
practices that are favorable to fostering dynamic capabilities.
Technical summary: This article examines the theoretical foundations of an organization’s
dynamic capabilities—sensing, seizing, and transforming—from the perspective of
organizational knowledge creation. Making a distinction between the creative and
adaptiveaspects of dynamic capabilities,this article arguesthat the foundation of creative
aspect is ‘meso:’it stems from team-level interactions of frontline workers’capabilities
facilitated by middle managers, rather than from individual-level (or micro-level)
capabilities. Inthis middle-up-down management model,top management sets the vision
of the organization, but middlemanagers grasp and solve the gapbetween the top and the
frontline by facilitating team-level dialectic interactions of employees. The leadership
practices of both top and middle management that facilitate this process are illustrated
with four Japanesemultinational companies—Fujifilm, Eisai, MayekawaManufacturing,
and Toyota. Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society.
‘For an enterprise to emerge a winner in times like
these it has to be quick to adapt. More than that, it
has to look ahead and anticipate the future. A good
enterprise can do this. But the best enterprise is a
company that creates change on its own. By offering
a new mechanism,a new product, a new idea,it creates
new values and changes the world. And it produces
such products one after another.’
—Shigetaka Komori,CEO,Fujifilm (Komori, 2015: 104)
INTRODUCTION
Innovation is a prevalent strategy for thriving in the
fast-changing global business environment (Lee,
Olson, and Trimi, 2012). Today’s managers are
pressured more than ever to account for the
Keywords: organizational knowledge creation theory; dynamic
capabilities; middle-up-down management; wise leadership;
phronesis;m ultinational enterprise
*Correspondence to: Ayano Hirose,College of Business,Rikkyo
University, 3-34-1 Nishiikebukuro, Toyoshima-ku, Tokyo 171-
8501 Japan. E-mail:ahirose@rikkyo.ac.jp
Copyright © 2016 Strategic Management Society
Global Strategy Journal
Global StrategyJournal, 6:168–182 (2016)
Published onlinein Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/gsj.1125
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