Playing it safe
This PhD thesis examines dynamic capabilities, a key area within business strategy, to help organizations achieve environmental, social, and financial sustainability. Organizations have a crucial role to play in achieving strong sustainability – which are the needed conditions to resolve the global social and environmental crises, including climate change and biodiversity loss. However, current organizational efforts are falling short, often because their main focus is on maximizing profit for shareholders. Consequently, organizations need transformational business strategies and new capabilities to change the way they do business. Dynamic capabilities help an organization adapt and evolve, for example through sensing new sustainability-related opportunities, seizing value from these opportunities, and reconfiguring the organization’s resources. However, there is limited dynamic capabilities research aimed towards strong sustainability goals, including recognizing environmental limits such as planetary boundaries. This thesis challenges traditional assumptions about organizations and the economic system, such as profit-maximization and ‘survival of the fittest’ as the best approach for successful organizations. Instead, this thesis helps build a new perspective on how dynamic capabilities can fit with organizational purposes beyond profit, helping achieve strong sustainability outcomes. The chapters in this thesis redefine the concept and purpose of dynamic capabilities, review work done on this topic by the research community, and explore capabilities developed by sustainability-leading organizations in the construction industry. Finally, this thesis provides guidance for future tool development to help any organization further develop their dynamic capabilities.