Managerial attention and knowledge-based dynamic capabilities: A meta-theoretical approach to competitive advantage

Abstract

The development of competitive advantage as a field of academic inquiry has come at the price of significant fragmentation of the overall scientific quest. The existing competitiveness studies are mainly characterized by mono-level research related to separate levels of analysis accompanied by the absence of a synthesis of various approaches. Thus, promising concepts of managerial attention, knowledge processes, and dynamic capabilities, emanating from varied strategic theories, have been integrated to develop a robust multilevel, meta-theoretical framework which explains: (a) how dynamic capabilities originate through the cognition of individual employees at the micro level, allowing managers and knowledge workers to systematically recognize the need for change in current routines and capabilities; (b) how individual-level abilities are amplified when they are harnessed to form knowledge capabilities, thereby orchestrating an idiosyncratic knowledge base at the meso level; and (c) how the multiple, firm-specific combinations of attention capabilities, knowledge capabilities, and higher-order dynamic capabilities together produce heterogeneous attention-based and knowledge-based dynamic capabilities that are capable of triggering instant yet systematic resource realignment to create the potential for sustainable competitive advantage at the macro level.