RESUMO Apesar da relevância e do crescimento da pesquisa em Capacidades Dinâmicas, certas lacunas e críticas permanecem. Essas questões estão relacionadas principalmente às suas medidas e seus impactos no desempenho. Há uma carência de pesquisas tentando investigar empiricamente a existência, o desenvolvimento e a orquestração de Capacidades Dinâmicas para suportar um desempenho superior. Este artigo propõe e valida uma escala para medição de Capacidades Dinâmicas com base nas dimensões conceituais de Teece (detecção, apreensão e reconfiguração) por meio de uma pesquisa em um mercado e indústria altamente dinâmicos e investigando o impacto no desempenho. Os resultados, além de validar a escala, mostraram que as três dimensões conceituais de Teece exibiram comportamentos diferentes em relação à cada dimensão de desempenho. A apreensão e reconfiguração demonstram uma relação negativa com o desempenho organizacional enquanto a detecção está positivamente associada ao desempenho. Isso pode ajudar a explicar alguns dos resultados vagos de estudos anteriores que usaram proxies para medir as Capacidades Dinâmicas.

ABSTRACT Despite the relevance and growth of research into Dynamic Capabilities, certain gaps and criticisms remain. These issues are primarily related to the measurements of Dynanic Capabilities and its impacts on performance. There is a lack of empirical research that is attempting to investigate the existence, development, and orchestration of Dynamic Capabilities to support superior performance. This paper proposes and validates a scale for the measurement of Dynamic Capabilities based on Teece’s conceptual dimensions (sense, seizing and reconfiguring) through a survey presented in a highly dynamic industry and market, and by investigating the impact on performance. The results, besides validating the scale, showed Teece´s three conceptual dimensions exhibited different behavior in relation to each dimension of performance. Sense and Reconfiguration demonstrated a negative relationship with organizational performance while Seize is positively associated with performance. This may help explain some of the fuzzy results of previous studies that used proxies to measure Dynamic Capabilities.

Global Value Chains (GVC) and their participants are dynamic. Events can provoke distinct strategic responses from different firms, even when they are part of a GVC. We investigated how both organizational and supply-chain path dependence can influence the capabilities that a firm needs to achieve a higher value-added position in a GVC. We have integrated three branches of theory, covering Global Value Chains, Organizational Capabilities, and Path dependence. We conducted a case study of a large Brazilian shoe firm, analyzing its relationships with buyers in GVCs. We found that path-dependent elements had locked-in the firm, preventing ascension to higher added value positions and keeping the organization in captive global value chain, even when it moved into new markets. Additionally, we propose a theoretical model that should prove fruitful in future research in other sectors and countries.