infonet-economy

This paper examines how strategy scholars have conceptualized the term “dynamics”. An increasing number of studies in the field of strategic management address dynamic issues. This leads to the question of what is actually understood by “dynamics”. Based on our extensive literature review, we identify four conceptualizations of dynamics which differ especially in their level of conceptual richness, i.e., most of the existing studies treat dynamics in a descriptive manner; only a few studies make use of more comprehensive and sophisticated perspectives of dynamics. By presenting examples of studies with low and high conceptual richness we intend to sensitize researchers for this issue and hope to strengthen debates around “dynamics” with the ultimate goal to detail our understanding about dynamics in strategic management. We therefore provide recommendations for future work aimed at advancing the research on dynamics in strategic management.