Title
Ties with government, strategic capability, and organizational ambidexterity: evidence from China's information communication technology industry
Abstract
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 China's 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 China's ICT industry are discussed.
Year
DOI
Venue
2014
10.1007/s10799-014-0175-3
Information Technology and Management
Keywords
Field
DocType
information communication technology industry,ambidexterity,exploitative innovation strategy,strategic capability,exploratory innovation strategy,ties with government
Ambidexterity,Survey data collection,Computer science,China,Knowledge management,Information and Communications Technology,Market competition,Government
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
15
2
1573-7667
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
3
0.43
24
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Xiaoyu Yu1184.75
Yi Chen230.43
Bang Nguyen3428.23
Wenhong Zhang430.43