Dynamic gap bridging and realized gap set development: The strategic role of the firm in the coevolution of capability space and opportunity space

Abstract

Building on the hypothesis that firm strategy is fundamentally a dynamic process of gap bridging between capability space and opportunity space, this paper investigates the strategic role of the firm in the coevolution of the capability space and the opportunity space. In more detail, it contributes to the strategy literature by introducing and discussing a typological distinction of a few dynamic gap sets (i.e., potential gap set, realized gap set, deliberate gap set, emergent gap set), which are deployed in a comprehensive conceptual framework underscoring the causes and consequences of the gap sets evolution. Additionally, the framework proposed is able to shed new light on the received distinction between deliberate and emergent strategies, and to reconnect them to the objectives of innovation and execution they aim to achieve. This intellectual effort allows us to synthesize the dichotomy, already familiar to strategy investigation, between strategy formulation and strategy implementation and to enhance the hermeneutic and interpretive capacity of the conceptual backbone of this work. In an integrative fashion, whereas strategy formulation refers to the firm’s mindful predisposition of the capabilities required to bridge the strategy gap between capabilities and opportunities, strategy implementation is concerned with the ‘real’ operational closure of the strategy gap.

The authors presented earlier versions of this study at the 10th International Schumpeter Society Conference, held in Milan’s Bocconi University, June 9–12, 2004, and at the 24th International Conference of the Strategic Management Society, convened in Puerto Rico, October 31–November 3, 2004. For insightful comments, we thank participants to the sessions of these venues where the paper was discussed. We acknowledge Franco Malerba for his kind support.