Organizational Ambidexterity, Exploration, Exploitation and Firms Innovation Performance

• Authors: Mladenka Popadić , Matej Černe , Ines Milohnić
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Background and Purpose: The construct of organizational ambidexterity (OA) has attracted the growing attention in management research. Previous empirical research has investigated the effect of organisational ambidexterity on performance from various perspectives. This study aims to resolve the contradictory previous research findings on the relationship between organisational ambidexterity and innovation performance. We unpack this construct with combined dimension of ambidexterity, which relates to a combination of high levels of both exploration and exploitation (introduction of products or services that were new to the market and new to the firm). Methodology: We frame our ambidexterity hypothesis in terms of firm’s innovation orientation. The hypothesis is tested by using Community Innovation Survey (CIS) 2006 micro data at the organizational level in twelve countries. To operationalize an ambidexterity and firms innovation outcome, we used self-reported measures of innovativeness. Results: To test our hypothesis, we developed a set of models and tested them with multiple hierarchical linear regression analyses. The results indicate that exploration and exploitation are positively related to firm’s innovation performances which supports our assumption that both are complementary. Furthermore, we find that above and over their independent effects, through combining them into a single construct of organizational ambidexterity, this variable remains negatively and significantly related to innovation performance. Conclusion: These results provides the managers with an idea of when managing trade-offs between exploration and exploitation would be more favorable versus detrimental. For firms with lower organizational ambidexterity, the relationship between exploration-exploitation and the firm’s innovation performance is a more positive one.

Keywords

EN

organizational ambidexterity; exploration; exploitation; innovation performance

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Organizacija
• Year: 2015
• Volume: 48
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 112-119

Dates

published

2015-05-01

received

2015-03-26

revised

2015-04-21

accepted

2015-04-27

online

2015-06-09

Contributors

author

Mladenka Popadić

• University of Rijeka, Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management Opatija, Croatia

author

Matej Černe

• University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics, Slovenia

author

Ines Milohnić

• University of Rijeka, Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality Management Opatija, Croatia

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Identifiers

DOI

10.1515/orga-2015-0006