The elephant in the room of Dynamic Capabilities: Bringing two diverging conversations together

A critical issue has been absent from the conversation on dynamic capabilities: the two seminal papers represent not only diverging but seemingly incompatible understandings of the framework. Here, we address the questions of what effect this may have on the development of the field and how to resolve this debate, using bibliometrics to inform our analysis. Our findings are concerning, suggesting the existence of underlying structural impediments to the unification of the field. Our solution, paradoxically, is to integrate the approaches while preserving their differences, finding logical ways to combine the views without violating the basic assumptions of either one. We find that even if dynamic capabilities are characterized as best practices or simple rules, they may explain enterprise-level sustainable competitive advantage in dynamic environments.