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AI-DRIVEN STRATEGIC RESTRUCTURING: A DRIVER OF INNOVATION AND
SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE CAPABILITY FOR ENTERPRISES

1
Pham Thi Thom* , Nguyen Thanh Dong , Do Thi Thanh Hai 3
2
1, 2 Dai Nam University, Hanoi, Vietnam
3 Hanoi Open University, Hanoi, Vietnam.
(*E-mail: thompham67@gmail.com)

ABSTRACT
In the digital era, artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a foundational technology
that is reshaping the competitive structure of enterprises. In practice, however, many
firms still deploy AI in a fragmented manner across individual functional areas and have
not yet transformed it into a strategic capability strong enough to drive organizational
restructuring and business model innovation.
Grounded in dynamic capabilities theory, this article analyzes the transformation
mechanism through which AI moves from a technical application to strategic restructuring
at the organizational level. Using an integrative literature review combined with
conceptual analysis, the study shows that AI does not directly generate sustainable
competitive capability. Rather, the strategic value of AI is realized only when firms
internalize the technology as an organizational capability and use it to improve decision
quality, strengthen forecasting capability, reconfigure resources, and stimulate innovation.
The findings confirm that AI-driven strategic restructuring is a critical mediating
mechanism that enables firms to build adaptive capability, intensify innovation, and
sustain competitive capability in a turbulent business environment.
Keywords: Artificial intelligence (AI); strategic restructuring; innovation; sustainable
competitive capability; dynamic capabilities.

1. Introduction
1.1. Research context and significance
Throughout economic history, each major wave of transformation has typically
been associated with a foundational technology capable of reshaping structures of
production, management, and competition. If steam power and electricity played leading
roles in earlier industrial revolutions, then in the digital era, artificial intelligence (AI) is
emerging as a general-purpose technology with far-reaching influence on firms and the
broader economy (Bresnahan & Trajtenberg, 1995; Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2017). AI not
only supports task automation but also expands organizational capabilities for learning,
forecasting, and decision-making in highly volatile environments.
However, the rapid development of AI also reveals a strategic paradox: although the
technology is increasingly accessible, the number of firms that have truly transformed AI
into competitive capability remains limited. An important reason is that many firms still
approach AI instrumentally, mainly associating it with digitalization or the local
optimization of existing processes, rather than viewing AI as a driver of strategic
restructuring at the enterprise-wide level (Teece et al., 1997; Krakowski et al., 2023).
At a broader level, AI is increasingly recognized as a technology capable of
influencing productivity, innovation, and long-term growth through knowledge
accumulation, improved decision quality, and the reorganization of business activities

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