Ambidextrous Innovation and New Venture Performance: A Combined Moderating Effect Model Based on the Multilevel Network Structure

Abstract

The network structure has attracted the attention of many domestic and foreign scholars as an important factor influencing innovation. But they usually ignore the hierarchy of the network structure. In this paper, ambidextrous innovation is divided into two dimensions: explorative innovation and exploitative innovation. This paper breaks the paradigm of single-level network and explores the moderating effect of network intensity of pair-level and network stability of network-level between ambidextrous innovation and new venture performance by constructing a combined moderating effect model of ambidextrous innovation, the multilevel network structure and new venture performance. The results show that network intensity and network stability positively regulate the relationship between ambidextrous innovation and new venture performance. In addition, network stability is seen as a situational variable, and the joint moderating effect of network stability and network intensity between ambidextrous innovation and new venture performance is supported. In order to ensure the reliability of the research conclusions, robust checks are conducted in this paper. This paper has some theoretical significance. First, it explores the influence mechanism of the multilevel network structure on the relationship between ambidextrous innovation and new venture performance, and verifies which level of the network structure will impact on innovation and performance improvement. It helps to further explore the path and the mechanism of impacts from ambidextrous innovation to performance. Second, most of the previous studies have been carried out from a single-level network and ignored the hierarchy of the network structure, which necessarily loses some of the richness in the data and precludes direct comparisons of theoretical influences at different levels. This paper explores the moderating effect of network intensity （pair-level） and network stability （network-level） between ambidextrous innovation and new venture performance, and contributes to understanding the influence mechanism of social networks between innovation and performance. Third, in this paper, network stability is seen as a situational variable and explores the joint moderating effect of network intensity and network stability on the relationship between ambidextrous innovation and new venture performance. This contributes to understanding the hierarchical interaction effect of the multilevel network structure. This paper has important practical values for new ventures to carry out innovation activities using external social network relations, improve enterprise performance, and achieve sustainable development.