When the going gets tough: How multinationals and local companies used dynamic capabilities during pandemic

Authors

Maha Barry, Institute of Business Administration - KarachiFollow
Ashar Saleem, Institute of Business Administration, KarachiFollow

Abstract

This study uses dynamic capability (DC) lens to explore how multinational companies (MNCs) and their local competitors make use of DCs during pandemic to achieve competitive advantage. The paper deploys a qualitative research methodology and collects primary and secondary data from 8 companies (4 MNCs, 4 Locals) in the pharmaceutical industry of Pakistan. We find that multinationals and local companies rely on different sets of DC to effectively deal with the pandemic. While multinationals make use of branding, alliancing and effective deployment of their R&D capability, locals deployed seizing, reconfiguration and strong external relationship better. In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic local companies’ performance improved, while the MNCs struggled to maintain market share. MNCs’ headquarter appeared to be responsible for their underperformance. This paper contributes to the DC research and explains which DC are more relevant for multinationals and local companies in a developing country context during a crisis. It also highlights an underexplored moderator of multinationals performance in these locations – their global headquarters.

Keywords

Dynamic capabilities, pandemic, developing country, MNC, local companies.

DOI

10.54784/1990-6587.1706

Journal of Economic Literature Subject Codes

JEL: F23 Multinational Firms • International Business

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Barry, M., & Saleem, A. (2025). When the going gets tough: How multinationals and local companies used dynamic capabilities during pandemic. Business Review, 20(1), 39-58. Retrieved from 10.54784/1990-6587.1706