Ties with government, strategic capability, and organizational ambidexterity: evidence from Chinas information communication technology industry
Organizations that are capable of pursuing exploration and exploitative innovation strategies simultaneously have demonstrated superior performance. For information and communication technology (ICT) firms, it is especially critical to achieve such organizational ambidexterity in order to both allocate limited resources and pursue different innovation strategies appropriately. As the ICT industry in China faces higher environmental uncertainty, a less developed institutional framework, and increased power of market competition, we explore the antecedents of ambidexterity conjointly, considering the effects of institutions and organizational capabilities. Building on ambidexterity literature, we develop a capability-building framework to explore firms strategic choice-making between exploratory innovation strategy versus exploitation innovation strategy, and their orientation to pursuit one, or both. With survey data from Chinas ICT industry, we find that ties with government promote an ambidextrous focus on both types of innovation strategies. In addition, we find that strategic capability partially mediates the main effects of ties with government on both exploratory and exploitative innovation strategies. Implications for organizational ambidexterity in Chinas ICT industry are discussed.
ties with government strategic capability ambidexterity information communication technology industry exploitative innovation strategy exploratory innovation strategy