Multilevel learning and dynamic gap bridging: the strategic role of perception in the coevolution of capability space and opportunity space

Building on the assumption that firm strategy is a fundamentally dynamic process of gap bridging between capability space and opportunity space, this article emphasizes the importance of firm multilevel learning processes for the coevolution of the capability space and the opportunity space. In more detail, it depicts a conceptual framework which underscores how the processes of organizational learning have an essential integrating role in bridging the strategy gap, and hooks up a novel and dynamic connection between organizational learning and realized gaps, which is to be seen as the pulsating outcome of a coevolutionary process which is partly deliberate and partly emergent. The incorporation of a cognitive and learning dimension as a supplement to the economic one renders it possible to take into account the importance of the firm’s perception of the opportunity space and the capability space. More specifically, the fact that the firm’s perception of capabilities and opportunities could be biased or subjective (generating a distinction between the capabilities/opportunities perceived and the actual capabilities/opportunities), allows us to introduce and discuss a pair of original concepts: the perceived strategy gap as opposed to the actual strategy gap. In addition to bearing important consequences on the declination of the dynamic gap bridging process into deliberate versus emergent, the introduction of the perception dimension proffers a way of investigating and understanding how the coevolutionary processes of capability space and opportunity space expansion/contraction are partially guided by firm multilevel learning and adaptation, which enable it to renew and redeploy its capabilities in relation to the evolution of strategic opportunities