Organizational Capabilities and Profitability: The Mediating Role of Business Strategy

Abstract

The resource-based view (RBV) posits that the sustainability of a firm’s success depends upon the creation, development, and implementation of a given organization’s unique resources and capabilities. Based on this theoretical framework, this article analyzes the relationship between organizational capabilities, business strategy, and profitability in the Portuguese textile industry. The strong relationship between these variables suggests that the organizational capabilities and the choice of business strategy may be the key to increase the profitability in this study context. So, the ability of the Portuguese textile organizations to change their business strategy based on their organizational capabilities affects profitability in a number of ways. Concretely, the results of this study highlight the importance of the choice of the business strategy as a partial mediator between the organizational capabilities and the profitability, a point that is crucial to understanding the success of a given organization and how resources and capabilities contribute to the process. The article concludes with a number of managerial implications and directions for future research.