ABSTRACT
One of the critical questions in information systems (IS) planning and strategy development has been to understand how a firm creates, renews, and exploits IS competencies for business advantage. Drawing from the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, we show how dynamic organizational capabilities provide necessary mechanisms for creating, renewing, and leveraging IS competencies at the firm level. Dynamic organizational capabilities, which create, renew, and exploit IS competencies, are related, but different in nature. Capabilities that create and renew competencies deal with the characteristics of existing competencies and specific resources that are transformed into competencies, and capabilities that exploit competencies for business advantages pertain to the coordination of functional-level competencies. Dynamic organizational capabilities can help a firm reconfigure and recombine its resources and existing competencies so that each portfolio of competencies is well balanced to provide sustainable advantages.
