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This study develops and tests an integrated framework to explain how tourism firms in an emerging economy translate strategic and environmental capabilities into competitive advantage under sustainability pressures. Drawing on the Resource-Based View (RBV), Natural Resource-Based View (NRBV), innovation theory, and dynamic capabilities, each offering a distinct perspective, we focus on four capabilities: strategic orientation, innovation governance, climate-action orientation, and environmental responsibility. The research problem addressed is how these capabilities interact under resource constraints and institutional voids in emerging economies, where pathways to competitiveness remain unclear. These operate through incremental and breakthrough innovation pathways, with top management support and dynamic capabilities as enabling conditions. Using survey data from 209 Vietnamese tourism firms and moderated mediation analysis, we find that environmental responsibility and innovation governance enhance competitiveness primarily through incremental innovation, offering a reliable pathway in resource-constrained contexts. Strategic and climate-action orientations influence competitiveness indirectly through breakthrough innovation, though these effects are conditional and weakened by institutional voids. The study contributes by (1) clearly distinguishing the roles of RBV, NRBV, and dynamic capabilities in shaping innovation pathways, (2) demonstrating the substitution of dynamic capabilities for breakthrough innovation under uncertainty, and (3) highlighting incremental innovation as the dominant and practical pathway to sustainable competitiveness in emerging markets.
PHAN et al. (Sat,) studied this question.