The influence of dynamic capabilities on sustainable business model innovation

Abstract

The global economy is transforming at an accelerated pace, where discontinuous change has become synonymous with being a new normal. This has serious implications for organisations, as if they do not have the capabilities to embrace such change and innovate to remain sustainable, they may be susceptible to obsolescence. In light of the above, this study was centred around the relationship between the phenomena of dynamic capabilities (DC) and business model innovation (BMI), which have gained much momentum within academia, in recent years, as avenues to enhance an organisation’s performance and sustainability. However, organisational design (ORGDESIGN) adds complexity to the relationship between those concepts. Therefore, this research sought to unpack and evaluate the relationships and interconnectedness between the three variables. A model was developed to assess the relationships, where a quantitative study was conducted on a final sample of 112 survey responses. The respective hypotheses were evaluated which revealed statistically significant relationships between DC and BMI, DC and ORGDESIGN, and ORGDESIGN and BMI, respectively. A test for mediation revealed a complementary partial mediation of ORGDESIGN on the DC-BMI relationship. The results provide empirical insight to the theoretical relationships between these three variables.