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More specifically, organizational AI capability, including data, infrastructure, and
human resources, provides the preconditions for firms to engage in strategic restructuring
through resource reconfiguration and operating model redesign. On that basis, firms
intensify innovation at the levels of products, processes, and business models, thereby
developing sustainable competitive capability, reflected in adaptive flexibility and the
maintenance of long-term market position. Thus, the strategic value of AI is formed
through a logical transformation chain: organizational AI capability → strategic
restructuring → innovation → sustainable competitive capability. The relationship among
these four components is illustrated in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Analytical framework of the relationship among organizational AI capability,
strategic restructuring, innovation, and sustainable competitive capability of
enterprises
Source: Proposed by the authors based on a synthesis of Bresnahan & Trajtenberg (1995),
Teece et al. (1997), Barney (1991), and Warner & Wäger (2019)
Figure 1 shows that AI is not an independent technological variable, but rather an
organizational capability capable of generating strategic effects when integrated into the
firm’s restructuring process. In this framework, organizational AI capability serves as the
input, strategic restructuring is the transformation mechanism, innovation is the
intermediate outcome, and sustainable competitive capability is the final output. On this
basis, the study formulates four core propositions:
Proposition 1: Organizational AI capability has a positive effect on strategic
restructuring. The internalization of AI enhances the firm’s ability to identify market
opportunities and accelerates the reconfiguration of resources.
Proposition 2: Strategic restructuring is a precondition for innovation. Adjustments
to operating models and business models create space for new combinations of resources,
thereby increasing product, process, and service innovation.
Proposition 3: Innovation contributes to strengthening sustainable competitive
capability. In digital environments, the ability to continuously generate new value
enhances differentiation and sustains long-term adaptive capacity.
Proposition 4: Strategic restructuring and innovation mediate the relationship
between organizational AI capability and sustainable competitive capability. AI does not
directly create strategic value; rather, it must pass through these two sequential
transformation mechanisms in order to be realized at the level of competition.
This relational chain provides the basis for the research method and analysis
developed in the following sections.

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