The power of combinative capabilities

facilitating the outcome of frequent innovation in pharmaceutical R&D projects

Article Innovation March 2011

Project Management Journal

Biedenbach, Thomas

How to cite this article:

Biedenbach, T. (2011). The power of combinative capabilities: facilitating the outcome of frequent innovation in pharmaceutical R&D projects. Project Management Journal, 42(2), 63–80.
The purpose of this article is to investigate how organizations organize the early phases of research and development (R&D) projects in the pharmaceutical industry to achieve frequent innovation. The concept of dynamic capabilities as a starting point in exploring the capabilities needed to master the crucial activities of R&D projects as pathfinders for frequent innovation. The investigation was designed as a qualitative multiple case study. The analysis identified a standardized projectification of the preproject phases, leading to certain conflicts, such as a severe tension between dynamic, project, and multiproject capabilities, which hamper frequent innovation. Optimizing combinative capabilities to balance the capabilities triumvirate can provide powerful leverage and boost frequent innovation. This study contributes to the capabilities-based literature of project management and strategic management by demonstrating the potential arising from a holistic view of organizing for innovation through project.
member content locked

Log in or join PMI to gain access

or Join

Advertisement

Advertisement

Related Content

  • Article Innovation 1 October 2019

    PM Network

    23: iPod member content locked

    One thousand songs in your pocket. That's how Apple CEO Steve Jobs sold the iPod when he introduced it in October 2001. Roughly the size of a deck of cards, the otherworldly gadget was essentially a…

  • Article Innovation, Information Technology 1 October 2019

    PM Network

    17: Google Search member content locked

    It has become part of the Silicon Valley lore. Inside a rented garage in Menlo Park, California, USA, two Stanford University students created what became the world's most prominent search engine.…

  • Article Innovation, Telecommunications 1 October 2019

    PM Network

    12: DynaTAC 8000X member content locked

    It weighed nearly 2 pounds (1 kilogram) and cost close to US$4,000. It took almost 10 hours to charge. And it worked for only 30 minutes before the battery died. Even the creators owned up to the…

  • Article Innovation, Healthcare 1 October 2019

    PM Network

    40: First IVF Baby member content locked

    Louise Brown was born 25 July 1978 in England. From all reports, the birth itself was uneventful. But it marked a turning point in treating infertility: Brown was the first child conceived through…

  • Article Innovation, Complexity 1 October 2019

    PM Network

    47: Watson member content locked

    In the early 2000s, IBM was looking for its next big initiative, a project that would generate buzz similar to the public and press adoration that followed when its supercomputer beat chess legend…

Advertisement

Publishing or acceptance of an advertisement is neither a guarantee nor endorsement of the advertiser's product or service. View advertising policy.