Within the last decade research on climate change strategies and adaptive capacity emerged as the debate about climate change was intensified with the publishing of the Third Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001. That companies are facing risks and opportunities is not new and the awareness to address these issues is growing. However, there is still need for research in the field of corporate strategic response to climate change. Recently, research focused on resilience management to address climate change. Resilience management is about being able to experience changes and remain stable getting back into the same situation before the change happen. On the contrary to resilience management adaptive capacity is about the ability to be able to adapt to uncertain and unexpected events on the long term. This includes long-term changes. This work argues that companies should think about their adaptive capacity as climate change induces short and long-term changes. Adding this dimension to the strategic planning companies need to think of how they can improve their adaptive capacity. This work investigates research in both issues adaptive capacity and climate change research and in their relation. Applying a systematic literature review this study conducted 60 references which are examined by a qualitative-quantitative analysis and answers the following questions: What is the current scientific view of adaptive capacity within strategic management literature? What are determinants of adaptive capacity? How can adaptive capacity be linked to climate change strategy and is it even antecedent to climate change strategies? The findings of this research indicate that adaptive capacity and climate change strategies exhibit a link but it cannot be proved whether adaptive capacity is antecedent. Furthermore, the term adaptive capacity is merely discussed within strategic management literature and if it is discussed and examined, several concepts and theories are applied to explain determinants of adaptive capacity. Several concepts such as dynamic capabilities, organizational learning capability, organizational learning, organizational change capacity, flexibility and more could be identified as concepts enhancing adaptive capacity. This works provides an overview of related concepts and theories.

Within the last decade research on climate change strategies and adaptive capacity emerged as the debate about climate change was intensified with the publishing of the Third Assessment Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2001. That companies are facing risks and opportunities is not new and the awareness to address these issues is growing. However, there is still need for research in the field of corporate strategic response to climate change. Recently, research focused on resilience management to address climate change. Resilience management is about being able to experience changes and remain stable getting back into the same situation before the change happen. On the contrary to resilience management adaptive capacity is about the ability to be able to adapt to uncertain and unexpected events on the long term. This includes long-term changes. This work argues that companies should think about their adaptive capacity as climate change induces short and long-term changes. Adding this dimension to the strategic planning companies need to think of how they can improve their adaptive capacity. This work investigates research in both issues adaptive capacity and climate change research and in their relation. Applying a systematic literature review this study conducted 60 references which are examined by a qualitative-quantitative analysis and answers the following questions: What is the current scientific view of adaptive capacity within strategic management literature? What are determinants of adaptive capacity? How can adaptive capacity be linked to climate change strategy and is it even antecedent to climate change strategies? The findings of this research indicate that adaptive capacity and climate change strategies exhibit a link but it cannot be proved whether adaptive capacity is antecedent. Furthermore, the term adaptive capacity is merely discussed within strategic management literature and if it is discussed and examined, several concepts and theories are applied to explain determinants of adaptive capacity. Several concepts such as dynamic capabilities, organizational learning capability, organizational learning, organizational change capacity, flexibility and more could be identified as concepts enhancing adaptive capacity. This works provides an overview of related concepts and theories.