Learning from Ambidexterity Experience

Abstract

To overcome conflicting findings in ambidexterity research, this paper expands the debate on experiential learning in the ambidexterity literature. We argue that experience in a specific ambidexterity mode (i.e. contextual or sequential) positively affects the relationship between a firm’s contextual or sequential ambidexterity and its invention productivity. Longitudinal data on German biotechnology firms’ alliance portfolio dynamics partially support our hypotheses. We find that sequential ambidexterity benefits invention productivity the more experience firms have in either sequential or contextual ambidexterity. Interestingly, neither experience in sequential nor contextual ambidexterity benefits the execution of contextual ambidexterity. This paper advances ambidexterity research by elucidating the important and complex, but so far overlooked, role of learning from experience for ambidexterity outcomes and by introducing methods to operationalize ambidexterity modes and the experience firms accumulated in their execution.