Author(s): Vishnu Chandar Venkatesh, Anupama Prashar
Dynamic capabilities (DCs) theory has achieved notable fame in the field of management. Studies have demonstrated that firms' performance may be short-lived without DCs, significantly when their environment drastically changes. When it comes to crises, firms are under tremendous pressure to survive. With DCs, firms can effectively respond to crises. Nevertheless, there are a plethora of studies on DCs. A study is essential to integrate key research findings on DCs to leverage DCs for crises effectively. However, the existing research appears to be in an embryonic phase as studies based on narrow search criteria reviewed DCs, and their findings are contextualized, fragmented, and thus not generalizable to crises. Hence, we systematically review and synthesize DC literature to date in context to crises using adapted review methodology guidelines of Tranfield. We identify and analyze 46 articles from 10 journal databases to develop a comprehensive framework that describes DCs' features for crises. We finally highlight research gaps and propose future research avenues and questions to strengthen DCs' theoretical knowledge in crises.