Sensing opportunities in dynamic markets: how to encourage all employees to take part

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate how companies can retain their ability to recognize, seize and maintain opportunities.

Design/methodology/approach

This conceptual work is built on existing research about an organization’s dynamic capabilities and literature on judgment under uncertainty.

Findings

This study offers specific ways in which companies can develop the dynamic capability of identifying new opportunities and, most importantly, how firms can maintain this rare dynamic capability for significant periods, so that they can harvest the benefits offered by owning this capability.

Practical implications

This study’s specific insights equip practitioners with turn-key information on how to build or maintain a firm’s unique ability to sense and capture an opportunity via the enhancement of the firm’s portfolio of simple rules.

Originality/value

This research introduces a novel idea about micro-foundations of a firm’s dynamic capabilities and theoretically argues that a favorable organizational culture and individuals’ rules of thumb can form a company’s dynamic ability to sense and seize an opportunity in high-velocity markets.

Citation

Evans, K.M. and Salaiz, A. (2019), "Sensing opportunities in dynamic markets: how to encourage all employees to take part", Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 40 No. 3, pp. 18-24. https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-03-2018-0047