Foundations of business transformation during VUCA times: The role of organizational learning

Abstract

This study examines how organisational learning fosters dynamic capabilities (DCs) enabling business transformation under volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA). Drawing on qualitative evidence from 18 UK-based organisations, we explore how organisational context, leadership, structure, systems, and culture, shapes firms’ capacity to recognise, absorb, and apply new knowledge for strategic adaptation. Using the Market Intelligence Accumulation and Transformation Model (MIATM) as an integrative framework, we identify three phases: recognition, sense-making and cognitive shifts, and deployment and reconfiguration. MIATM extends sense-seize-transform schemas by foregrounding how contextual levers shape learning routines that convert market intelligence into capability change. Feedback loops, cognitive shifts, and transactive memory systems serve as micro-foundations for dynamic capability development. Our findings distinguish dynamic forerunners from non-dynamic laggards, with implications for leadership, organisational design, and empowerment. The study advances organisational learning theory by detailing how VUCA-focused transformation unfolds through context-sensitive learning mechanisms and by providing a diagnostic framework for transformation readiness.