The Power of Combinative Capabilities: Facilitating the Outcome of Frequent Innovation in Pharmaceutical R&D Projects

The purpose of this article is to investigate how organizations organize the early phases of research and development (R&D) projects in the pharmaceutical industry to achieve frequent innovation. The investigation was designed as a qualitative multiple case study. The analysis identified a standardized projectification of the preproject phases, leading to certain conflicts, such as a severe tension between dynamic, project, and multiproject capabilities, which hamper frequent innovation. Optimizing combinative capabilities to balance the capabilities triumvirate can provide powerful leverage and boost frequent innovation.