‘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