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Top1. Introduction
The post-PC era underlies a collection of research about mobile services (m-services). However, existing m-service research seems more focused on consumer issues. Such studies provide understanding about factors influencing consumers’ adoption of m-services (e.g. Shim, Ahn, & Shim, 2006; Kumar & Lim, 2008; Riquelme & Rios, 2010; Gomez-Barroso et al., 2012; Tobbin, 2012). Others have explored the organisational aspects of m-service e.g. business models and creating customer value in m-services (Methlie & Pederson, 2007; de Reuver & Haaker, 2009; Johansson et al., 2012; Ghezzi, 2012; Gonçalves & Ballon, 2011). These studies fall short of explaining the development of such m-services.
The observed knowledge gap needs exploring mainly for the reason that we cannot have m-services without development first taking place. Also, m-services make a significant share in non-voice revenue in the mobile ecosystem, are considered as growth drivers, a revenue source, and a growth booster when the mobile market is declining due to low average revenue per user per month, intense competition, and fall in voice tariffs (Jasrai, 2014). Further, companies that undertake the development of m-services, hereinafter referred to as m-service providers have been largely ignored as research settings by m-service literature in favour of other companies such as mobile network operators. In striving towards a comprehensive understanding of the m-services phenomenon it is important to understand m-service development.
The high adoption of m-services suggests the presence of high competition within the ecosystem of mobile technology-related companies (Bose & Chen, 2010). Meanwhile, rivalry resulting from innovation, price, and performance also create the need to continuously create and evolve strategies to achieve goals (Feurer & Chaharbaghi, 1996). M-service providers’ tendency to continue creating rent-generating m-services that possibly overcome their competitors make them susceptible to being innovative in combining resources - theirs or others - to create m-services (Wang & Lin, 2012). The dynamic capability framework is the prevailing paradigm for understanding how firms in highly competitive environments evolve strategies to achieve competitive advantage (Teece, Pisano & Shuen, 1997; Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000). The evolution of such firm strategies usually result in capabilities. However, due to the context-dependent nature of such capabilities (Collis, 1994; den Hertog, van der Aa, & de Jong, 2010), research has attempted to contextualise the capability creation in terms of where they are being created e.g. marketing capabilities (Ali, Peters, & Lettice, 2012; Evers, Andersson, & Hannibal, 2012); dynamic capabilities in institutional entrepreneurship (McKague, 2011), and technological capabilities (Figueiredo, 2008; Zhou & Wu, 2010). The dynamic capability framework thus lacks empirical testing from a very competitive and dynamic environment such as which exists in the mobile ecosystem. More importantly, prominent reviews argue for alternative conceptualisations for dynamic capabilities based on “the nature, role, relevant context, heterogeneity assumptions, and purpose of dynamic capabilities” (Barreto, 2010, p. 270). In terms of nature, there is an existing challenge to make the construct “nondichotomous to allow varying degrees of dynamic capability across firms, which seems more compatible with real-world situations than a “have it or not” approach. In addition, Barreto (2010) points out a raging challenge about the purpose of dynamic capabilities i.e. to “formulate a concept that avoids the specification of a purpose without attracting criticisms of being vague or intractable”.