Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on research that identifies the relationships that senior managers believe exist between capabilities and business success. In doing so, it addresses the need for more empirical research about the role of strategic and dynamic capabilities in organisational performance. It also highlights the critical strategic and dynamic capabilities that are most valuable for practising managers. Design/methodology/approach – A multi-method study was conducted. Eight types of strategic capability and ten types of dynamic capability commonly found in organisations were identified through consecutive literature review, web site content analysis and interviews with senior executives. A questionnaire survey was then used to ask senior officers of publicly listed Australian firms about the importance of each capability and financial and non-financial performance indicators. The relationship between capabilities and performance was measured by regression modelling. Findings – Good leadership with an innovative vision and selection and retention of good staff and developing their skills and capabilities were the stand out strategic capabilities. Strategic thinking about the big picture and the long-term and flexible leaders who can lead and manage adaptation to change were considered to be the most important dynamic capabilities. Strategic capabilities were more often associated with indicators of financial success, and dynamic capabilities were more often associated with non-financial measures of organisational performance. Originality/value – This is the first study to make a distinction between strategic and dynamic capabilities in examining the relationship between capabilities and business success. The results demonstrate that the distinction has both theoretical and practical value.

This research investigated the effects of casual work arrangements on employee job satisfaction and commitment in a segment

Argues that because of the many inherent weaknesses of traditional empirical research, generative and case study approaches may be more useful methodologies for conducting research on quality management. Outlines ways in which the generative research model builds conceptual frameworks from the data provided by the target population itself in conjunction with a review of the literature, while the case study approach provides a much deeper and richer insight to the quality management practices of the company being investigated. Discusses the benefits and difficulties associated with case study research.

This article summarises the findings of a study which canvassed clients’ views of strategic capabilities which lead to management consulting success. The survey was undertaken among 171 executives in the top 500 companies in Australia. The major elements that were investigated were the reasons for hiring the consultants and the strategic capabilities related to successful performance indicators as identified by clients. The findings show that the main reasons consultants are hired are insufficient in‐house expertise, independent/objective advice, gaining additional help/resources, insufficient manpower in‐house and quick resolution of issues. The top five strategic capabilities which clients identified as important to success, in order, were ability to listen to and comprehend the client, quality of service, client‐consultant communication, integrity and honesty and technical knowledge. All the strategic capabilities were related to one or more performance indicators. The top five performance indicators were achieving objectives agreed upon, customer/client satisfaction, timeliness of service delivery, recommendations actually implemented and achieving measurable results. Therefore the contemporary management consultant needs to be multi‐skilled and technically competent and, should have excellent people skills. Consultants also need to note that their view on what constitutes successful performance is not quite the same as that of their clients.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.