Ambidextrous Strategies and Innovation Priorities: Adequately Priming the Pump for Continual Innovation

Nehemiah Scott

doi:10.22215/timreview/812

Abstract

IntroductionIt was close to the end of his first term as President of the United States that President Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference, and stated “Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.” (Menon et al., 1999). Such a statement emphasizes that environmental volatility will render actual plans useless, but when good planning

Highlights

It was close to the end of his first term as President of the United States that President Dwight D
Whereas many studies focus on imbalance within the innovation capability itself (He & Wong, 2004; Lin et al, 2013), this study argues that it is the planning activities comprised of strategies and innovation priorities prior to the actuation of the innovation capability that are most critical to ensure successful and timely innovation outputs
Ambidextrous innovation performance can be achieved when coordination of knowledge is transpiring between those areas of the firm where exploration and exploitation projects are housed and executed (Raisch et al, 2009; Tushman & O’Reilly III, 1996)

Summary

Technology Innovation Management Review

Ambidextrous Strategies and Innovation Priorities: Adequately Priming the Pump for Continual Innovation. Firms may succeed at either refining existing competencies for incremental innovations or exploring new opportunities for radical innovations, many firms have experienced great difficulty in simultaneously pursuing and realizing success in both areas This innovation imbalance arises when firms stick to traditional strategic notions of competition in fast-moving industries; these firms have not realized that the ability to compete in current and new markets begins with the strategies and priorities that are responsible for the very nature of innovation capabilities. This study develops a continual innovation framework that illustrates the impact ambidextrous strategies and priorities have on the firm’s ambidextrous innovation capability It offers a modified concept of ambidexterity (i.e., exploration, exploitation, coordination) to reconceptualize business, marketing, and information-systems strategies as ambidextrous strategy constructs. The article discusses the relationships between constructs and the implications of this reconceptualization for researchers and managers

Introduction

Ambidextrous Organizational Strategies

Conceptual Framework and Propositions

Implications and Conclusion