Reframing Strategic Integration: A Conceptual Model of Knowledge Flows and Adaptive Capabilities in Organizational Renewal

Abstract

Many strategic integration efforts such as post-merger integration, organizational restructuring, or strategic alliances fail to generate sustained organizational renewal despite extensive structural alignment. Existing research largely explains integration outcomes through structural fit, process harmonization, or information systems, offering limited insight into how integration enables long-term adaptation.

This paper develops a conceptual model that reframes strategic integration as a knowledge centric, capability building process. Drawing on the Knowledge Based View and Dynamic Capabilities Theory, we theorize how the quality of knowledge flows defined by speed, fidelity, absorptive fit, and reciprocity constitutes the primary mechanism through which integration activates adaptive capabilities. We argue that sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring capabilities emerge endogenously from sustained, high-quality knowledge interactions rather than from pre-existing firm level attributes.

The framework also specifies key boundary conditions, including learning-oriented culture, leadership attention, environmental dynamism, and knowledge overlap. By shifting the explanatory locus of integration outcomes from structural alignment to knowledge flow quality, this paper advances integration theory and provides a foundation for future empirical research on organizational renewal across diverse integration contexts.