Learn from Uber: a study of dynamic capability in Chinese online pharmacy industry

Abstract

The rapid development of e-commerce in China has resulted in strong competition in medical e-commerce industry, which has made online pharmacies struggling to maintain their competitive advantage. Dynamic capability is the change-oriented capability that can help online pharmacies keep pace with market development, technology development, and consumer demand changes to obtain sustainable competitive advantages thus to survive in the dynamic environment and access to market share. This dissertation focused on the dynamic capability of Chinese online pharmacy industry. Firstly, we did the literature review of strategy schools and dynamic capability theory, analyzed and summarized the measurements of dynamic capability; secondly, we studied about Uber’s dynamic capabilities; then, as for the field study, we adopted the quantitative method: we distributed questionnaires to investigate the dynamic capability application and importance in Chinese online pharmacy industry; finally, this dissertation drew the conclusion through comparison. From the study we concluded that: dynamic capability is composed by adaptive capability, absorptive capability, and innovative capability; through data analysis we found that there were distance between current application and corresponding importance of dynamic capabilities in Chinese online pharmacies especially in sensitive observing the environment, accessible knowledge management database and knowledge sharing system, and applying new knowledge into innovation.

O rápido desenvolvimento do comércio eletrónico na China provocou uma forte concorrência no comércio eletrónico da indústria médica, o que fez com que as farmácias on line tivessem dificuldade em manter as suas vantagens competitivas. A construção de capacidades dinâmicas, as capacidades que permitem reorganizar os recursos para fazer face às mudanças da envolvente, pode ajudar as farmácias a acompanhar as mudanças do mercado e da tecnologia. Esta dissertação analisou as capacidades dinâmicas da indústria farmacêutica on-line Chinesa. Primeiramente, fizemos a revisão de literatura das escolas de pensamento estratégico e das capacidades dinâmicas; depois estudamos as capacidades dinâmicas da empresa Uber e finalmente realizamos um estudo empírico. No estudo empírico adotamos o método quantitativo. Com base na revisão de literatura referente às capacidades dinâmicas, construímos um questionário que foi enviado a pessoas que trabalham nas farmácias. Do estudo concluímos que as farmácias on line necessitam de melhorar asa suas capacidades dinâmicas especialmente na observação da envolvente.