This dissertation consists of three papers that are linked through the topic of organizational capabilities. The first paper, entitled "Organizational Core Capabilities, Strategic Intent and Performance: A Study of the Pharmaceutical Industry," looks at the association between capabilities, strategic intent and performance. Employing capabilities theory and the strategic intent literature, I model (i) the association of firm-level capabilities and rigidities on performance, (ii) the association of strategic intent and performance and (iii) the interaction effects of capabilities and strategic intent upon performance. Our sample consists of pharmaceutical firms during the years 1993 to 2003 and I find that both capabilities and strategic intent are negatively associated with firm performance. The interaction of the two main effects is positively related to performance conditional on firms having high strategic intent. The findings point to potential evidence of core rigidities theory as well as strategic intent theory, which has yet to be empirically tested by scholars. The second paper is entitled "The Impact of Political Capabilities on Firm Performance: An Empirical Investigation." In this paper, I integrate capabilities theory with the literature on corporate political activity (CPA). The CPA literature has been robust in addressing the determinants of a firm's choice to engage in political activities but has been less robust in modeling the CPA-performance link. I address this by first integrating capabilities theory and political action and then by testing a number of constructs on a sample of Fortune 500 firms from varying industries. Specifically, I find that political action committee (PAC) intensity and lobbying intensity is associated with higher firm performance. I then interact PAC intensity with lobbying intensity and also find positive association between this interaction and performance, denoting that these two activities are complements and not substitutes. Finally, I moderate these relationships with industry concentration and find that performance increases for politically active firms as industries become more concentrated. The third paper is titled "Political Capabilities and Rigidities: The Case of AT&T's Acquisition Attempt of T-Mobile USA." This paper studies, in an in-depth case study, the political capabilities of American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), focusing on the years 1984-2011. Using capabilities and rigidities theory from management, I provide detailed evidence of (i) AT&T's intent to compete on political capabilities, (ii) the success derived from these political capabilities and (iii) situational failure resulting from an over-reliance on these political capabilities. In the empirical section, I show how the firm failed to assess external information that it needed to adjust its competitive strategy and, as a result, failed to acquire a key competitor. This paper makes contributions to capabilities research, rigidities research and corporate political activity. / Business Administration/Strategic Management

The alignment of business and information technology (IT) strategy is an important and enduring theoretical challenge for the information systems discipline and has remained a top issue in practice for the past twenty years. The extant literature makes two implicit assumptions. One is that IT strategy is aligned with a single business strategy, either at the corporate level or within a single strategic business unit (SBU). The other is that strategies are developed at a single point in time. Therefore, multi-business organisations present a particular alignment challenge, because business strategies are developed at both the corporate level and SBU levels, and these strategies are developed over time. This dissertation contributes a dynamic, capabilities-based theory of business and IT strategy alignment. Rather than extending existing models, this study draws on theory from the resource-based view of the firm and path dependence to address business and IT alignment within and between corporate and SBU levels across the strategy cycle. A new dynamic alignment model conceptualises IT alignment as the fit between business and IT strategies within the corporate and SBU levels and the coherence between these two levels. Value is created by complementary relationships among business and IT capabilities. IT alignment (or misalignment) is embedded over the strategy cycle, with the degrees of freedom declining quickly over time. The new model is validated using pattern matching with a single critical case of strategy development in a multi-business organisation across a complete strategy cycle. The strong match between the empirically observed and theoretically predicted patterns, and the complex nature of these patterns, provides strong support for the model. The model reconceptualises the way IT alignment drives organisational performance and how IT alignment changes over time. This has implications for existing IT alignment models, providing alternative theoretical explanations of how IT alignment creates value and how IT alignment changes over time. The new model also has implications for practice across the IT investment value chain and its governance.

Questo lavoro è incentrato sulle fondazioni bancarie italiane. Lo scopo di questo lavoro è quello di descrivere la situazione di questi enti non profit nate dalle vecchie casse di risparmio (e banche dei monti). Si ritiene che fondazioni bancarie, che sono i soggetti grant making più importanti in Italia, stiano attraversano un momento di cambiamenti (dal punto di vista strategico), dopo un periodo turbolento dal punto di vista della produzione legislativa, in questo lavoro queste aziende sono studiate con l'approccio tipico della resource based view allo scopo di capire se le fondazioni bancarie stiano superando l'isomorfismo istituzionale che caratterizzò il sistema delle fondazioni tecniche bancarie adottando nuove e diverse strategie basate sulle competenze centrali che ogni fondazione possiede. L'ipotesi di questo lavoro sono due: il superando dell'isomorfismo e l'affermazione di una nuova cultura manageriale. La ricerca multi-metodo mostra che le ipotesi non sono ancora completamente verificate anche se alcune fondazioni guidate da direttori più visionari stanno approntando nuovi approcci strategici ed organizzativi per il loro futuro. / This work is focused on the Italian banking foundations. The aim of this work is to describe the situation of these non profit organizations born from the old public banks. The banking foundations which are the richest grant making subjects in Italy are supposed to be in a moment of changes (under the strategic point of view), after a period of turbulent times due to the legislative innovations, in this work these organizations are studied with the typical approach of the Resource based view in order to understand if the banking foundations are overcome the isomorphism that characterized the whole system of banking foundations adopting new different strategies based on the core competences which every foundation has. The hypotheses of this work are two: the overcoming of the isomorphism and the affirmation of a new managerial culture among these subjects. The research that used different methods shows that the hypothesis are still not completely verified even if some foundations lead by visionary managers are trying new strategic and organizational approaches for their future.