Ambidextrous search and product innovation: moderating effects of resource and structural attributes

Abstract

This study examines how ambidextrous search strategy that conjointly pursuing technology search and market search affects innovation, as well as under what circumstances this relationship would be improved. In particular, we develop a model suggesting that a firm’s resource and structural attributes significantly shape the relationship between ambidextrous search and innovation. Using a data set composed of 233 firms, this study finds that ambidextrous search in terms of the interaction between technology search and market search plays a negative role in product innovation. Further, the relationship between ambidextrous search and innovation is positively moderated when the firm has more slack resources, or is less formalized. In particular, the firm characterized by high organizational slack and low formalization is the best at gaining innovation benefits of ambidextrous search. The findings enrich the discipline’s knowledge on the implications of search patterns especially regarding the question of how to maximize their contributions to product innovation.