Abstract
PurposeThe investigation of organization's ambidextrous innovation is a challenge in the research studies of management sciences. As existent literature showed a positive relation between dynamic capability (DC) and innovation, few empirical studies are conducted to explain how DC impacts on the balanced and combined dimension of ambidexterity and still less on how social network moderates this relation. As a result, this paper aims to investigate and provide empirical evidence on DC’s influence on ambidexterity in the context of China.Design/methodology/approachBy a relational model of DC, ambidextrous innovation and social network, this study has conducted multiple regression analysis on the data collected from 350 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in mainland China.FindingsThe results show that, DC has positive influence on both the combined and balanced dimension of ambidexterity; and both the relational network and structural network play an inverted U moderating role, where the moderation of relational network is stronger than that of structural network.Originality/valueThis study provides empirical support on DC's influence on ambidexterity together with the moderation of social network.
Highlights
In the turbulent business environment nowadays, firms are obliged to engage in both exploratory and exploitative behavior to establish sustained competitive advantage, that is, organization’s ambidextrous innovation. Danneels (2002) argues that there is both exploratory and exploitative innovation in the field of technological innovation
These two types of innovation are of quite distinctive nature, where exploratory innovation seeks for completely new measures from current technology and practice, while exploitative innovation realizes gradual improvement based on current technology and practice
As the two types of firms are distinctive in terms of ambidextrous innovation, this study focuses on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to understand how SMEs use their dynamic capability (DC), together with their social network, to realize the balanced development and mutual promotion of both exploratory and exploitative innovation
Summary
In the turbulent business environment nowadays, firms are obliged to engage in both exploratory and exploitative behavior to establish sustained competitive advantage, that is, organization’s ambidextrous innovation. Danneels (2002) argues that there is both exploratory and exploitative innovation in the field of technological innovation. As the two types of firms are distinctive in terms of ambidextrous innovation, this study focuses on SMEs to understand how SMEs use their DC, together with their social network, to realize the balanced development and mutual promotion of both exploratory and exploitative innovation. The exploitative innovation, for its part, aims to meet current customer and market needs by way of utilizing and perfecting current available knowledge and techniques, improving current product or service, which will make the current production process more effective (Jansen et al, 2006) Some studies support this with the argument that, firms should simultaneously engage in both exploratory and exploitative innovation to establish sustained competitive advantage. There is a positive relation between DC and the combined dimension of ambidextrous innovation
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