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

Building on the hypothesis that firm strategy is fundamentally a dynamic process of gap bridging between capability space and opportunity space, this article investigates upon the strategic role of the firm in influencing the coevolution of the capability space and the opportunity space. In more detail, it contributes to 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 distinction between deliberate and emergent strategies and to reconnect them to the objectives of innovation and execution they are aimed to achieve. This intellectual effort proffers a way of synthesizing the dichotomy, already familiar to strategy analysis, between strategy formulation and strategy implementation and to enhance the hermeneutic and interpretive capacity of the conceptual backbone. 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.