Ties with government,strategic capability,and organizational ambidexterity: evidence from China’s 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 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.     

Building contextual ambidexterity in a software company to improve firm-level coordination

Software organizations increasingly face contradictory strategic choices as they develop customized and packaged solutions for the market. They need to improve efficiency of development processes while at the same time adapting to emerging customer needs; they need to exploit software products in relation to existing customers while simultaneously exploring new technology and market opportunities; and, they need to consider both incremental and radical innovations. While the integration of such opposing strategies requires software organizations to become ambidextrous, there is limited actionable advice on how managers can develop such capability. Against this backdrop, we report from a two-year action research study into a small software firm, TelSoft. Based on Pettigrew's contextualist inquiry, we develop a framework that integrates existing theory on contextual ambidexterity with a generic process for improving software organizations, and we apply this framework to analyze how TelSoft improved its coordination of products, projects, and innovation efforts. As a result, we offer principles for how software managers can build ambidextrous capability to improve firm-level coordination.     

Exploration–Exploitation: How business analytics powers organisational ambidexterity for environmental sustainability

Simultaneous exploration and exploitation (i.e., exploration–exploitation) can help a firm address short-term environmental requirements and ensure long-term environmental viability. Exploration–exploitation, however, challenges organisational practices because they compete for resources and time. While business analytics (BA) offers the potential to overcome these challenges, research to date offers very limited insights into how BA capabilities interact with ambidextrous capabilities to realise environmental value. We address this issue by conducting a comparative case study at a bank and at a real-estate trust through the theoretical lens of dynamic capabilities. We develop a process model to explain how BA powers ambidextrous practices to achieve sustainability outcomes over time. We uncover two mechanisms: a BA-powered context shaping mechanism by which BA powers contextual ambidexterity at the employee level using data availability, timeliness, and analytics culture; and a BA-powered resource linking mechanism by which BA powers structural ambidexterity at intra- and inter-organisational levels using holistic insights and analytics leadership. Our model highlights the contextual factors that condition the extent to which a firm moves along the continuum of exploration–exploitation. We also define a new dimension of sustainability outcomes which we label eco-awareness to explain how BA shapes employees' environmental alertness and enables the paradigm shift in an organisation's sustainability mindset.     

Organizing for Continuous Innovation: On the Sustainability of Ambidextrous Organizations

Organizing for innovation does not present itself as a straightforward exercise. The complexities entailed when implementing an innovation strategy can be related directly to the multitude of objectives it comprises. Recently, several scholars have advanced the notions of semi‐ or quasi‐structures and ambidextrous organizations to handle these multiple requirements. These organizational forms imply the simultaneous presence of different activities, exhibiting differences in technology and market maturation. As a consequence, financial returns will reflect this diversified resource allocation pattern. Moreover, as higher levels of complexity are being introduced; ambidextrous organizations will encounter additional, organizational, costs. Compared to organizations that focus on the most profitable part of the portfolio, ambidextrous organizations – ceteris paribus – tend to be inferior in terms of financial returns. Within this contribution we explore under which conditions ambidextrous organizations can outperform focused firms; considered a prerequisite for their sustainability. In order to do so, we develop an analytical framework depicting the differential value dynamics, focused and ambidextrous firms can enact. Our findings reveal the relevancy of adopting extended time frames as well as introducing interface management practices aimed at cross‐fertilization. Finally, the synergetic potential of (underlying) technologies comes to the forefront as necessary in order for ambidextrous organizations to become sustainable.     

A Multi‐Level Model for Organizational Ambidexterity in the Search Phase of the Innovation Process

Innovation is one of the most critical means in supporting and improving the competitive position of the firm, in particular, and a firm's survival and growth depend greatly on its ability to balance the exploitation of existing knowledge with the exploration of new possibilities, by building ambidexterity capability. While different alternatives to realize the simultaneous reconciliation of exploration and exploitation at an operational level have been proposed, how organizations build ambidexterity capability is not fully understood. The aim of this paper is thus to explore how exploration and exploitation balancing can be achieved in practice. We decided to focus on the early phase of the process where firms search for new ideas with which to renew themselves. To this end, we analysed the search phase of a highly innovative technology‐based company by investigating structural design choices combined with the presence of specific roles and searching practices. The results show how the exploration and exploitation balancing act can actually be achieved and maintained through a multi‐level approach that integrates both the operational and the strategic levels. Our findings thus contribute to the organizational ambidexterity literature, by proposing a first interpretative model for dealing with ambidexterity in the search phase of the innovation process.     

Managing the complexity of digital transformation—How multiple concurrent initiatives foster hybrid ambidexterity

Incumbent companies are launching digital transformation initiatives (DTIs) to cope with technological changes, challenging competitive environments, increasing customer demands, and other digitalization challenges. The DTI spectrum is broad and covers structural and contextual changes. Companies often launch multiple. concurrent DTIs, resulting in considerable organizational complexity. However, there has been very little research into the successful management of the interplay between DTIs. Drawing on five management aspects (strategic alignment, governance, methods/IT, people, and culture) and insights from three case companies, we elucidate DTIs’ interplay, illustrating that beneficial DTI interplay management leads to a complementary duality instead of a competing dualism in organizational ambidexterity. We explicate that multiple concurrent DTIs can foster structural and contextual ambidexterity, which leads to hybrid ambidexterity, concluding that contextual ambidexterity coheres and balances exploration and exploitation efforts. Thereby, we contribute to a better understanding of DTIs, their interplay management, and their roles to foster hybrid ambidexterity.

     

Innovation diffusion in global contexts: determinants of post-adoption digital transformation of European companies

Grounded in the diffusion of innovation theory and the technology–organization–environment framework, we develop an integrative model to study the determinants of post-adoption stages of innovation diffusion, using enterprise digital transformation as an example of technology-enabled innovations. We specify four innovation characteristics (relative advantage, compatibility, costs and security concern) and four contextual factors (technology competence, organization size, competitive pressure and partner readiness) as determinants of post-adoption usage, and postulate usage as an intermediate link to impact on firm performance. We test the proposed model using a dataset of 1415 companies from six European countries. We find that the innovation needs to be used extensively in value-chain activities before its impact can be realized. Among the innovation characteristics, we find that compatibility is the strongest driver, and security concern outweighs cost as a usage inhibitor. Among the contextual variables, technology competence, partner readiness and competitive pressure significantly drive e-business usage, and the structural inertia of large firms tends to slow down its penetration. Collectively, these results indicate that innovation diffusion can be better understood by including both innovation characteristics and contextual factors, whereas earlier literature has traditionally treated the two separately. Finally, we evaluate an international dimension among European countries and tease out important boundary conditions that would not have been evident in a single-country dataset. Our results show that careful attention must be paid to the economic and regulatory factors that may result in uneven innovation diffusion even among developed European countries.     

Understanding employee competence,operational IS alignment,and organizational agility – An ambidexterity perspective

Views on whether business-information systems (IS) alignment enhances or impedes organizational agility vary. The present study addresses this paradox by examining business-IS alignment at the strategy implementation stage, that is, the operational level. We conceptualize operational-level IS alignment (hereafter OISA) as an ambidextrous capability consisting of both structural and social alignments and examine its effect on organizational agility. Furthermore, we study the role of shared competence between business and IS departments in achieving OISA ambidexterity. Survey data of 119 departmental managers empirically support our research model. We summarize the implications and suggestions for future research.     

Business intelligence and analytics use,innovation ambidexterity,and firm performance: A dynamic capabilities perspective

To survive in a dynamic and hyper-competitive business environment, firms are compelled to simultaneously introduce incremental and radical innovations. While it is recognised that business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) can support innovation and provide organisational value, the literature provides a limited understanding of its impact on balancing different innovation activities and ensuring performance gains. In this study, we examine the relationship between BI&A use, innovation ambidexterity, and firm performance by relying on the process theory of IS value creation as well as the dynamic capabilities perspective. We test our model using data collected from medium- and large-sized firms in Slovenia, applying partial least squares modelling. The results support the notion that BI&A use is positively associated with successful balancing between explorative and exploitative innovation activities, which in turn enhances firm performance. Our results also indicate that innovation ambidexterity is enhanced in two ways: indirectly through interaction with the firm’s absorptive capacity, and directly by increasing the possibilities of faster experimentation with offerings of products or services and improved predictability of the value of new products or services.     

Double ambidexterity: How a Telco incumbent used business‐model and technology innovations to successfully respond to three major disruptions

We leverage the business model innovation and ambidexterity literature to investigate a contradictory case, the Swedish‐Finnish Telecom operator TeliaSonera. Despite being challenged by three major disruptions, the company not only still exists but also enjoys remarkably good financial performance. Building on extant archival data and interviews, we carefully identify and map 26 organizational responses during 1992–2016. We find that the firm has overcome three critical phases by experimenting and pioneering with portfolios of business models and/or technological innovations. We describe this behaviour as double ambidexterity. We use an in‐depth case study to conceptualize double ambidexterity and discuss its impact on the business's survival and enduring success.     

Ambidextrous Innovation and Game Market Fit Performance: Feedback from Game Testers

ABSTRACT

The dynamics of the market pose a challenge for the digital game industry. Game development firms must develop innovative games to satisfy game players’ ever-changing needs and sustain a suitable product/market fit. To realize such innovation, developers tend to adopt an ambidextrous approach that includes exploratory and exploitative activities to develop games. In addition, game development teams must rely on feedback from game testers to enhance development and meet game players’ needs. However, the effect of feedback on innovation is subject to debate. Some studies have proposed that feedback has potentially negative effects on creativity. Given the prevalence of ambidextrous innovation and the utilization of feedback from game testers, no study to date has investigated the effects of feedback on game development quality. A survey of 119 paired game producers and developers revealed that “feedback timing” from game testers positively enhances the relationship between ambidextrous innovation and a game’s final development performance, whereas “feedback specificity” impairs the effectiveness of ambidextrous innovation. This paper discusses the implications of this study.     

The significance of context in information systems and organizational change

This paper argues that it is of crucial importance that information systems (IS) research and practice associates technology innovation with the context within which it is embedded. It identifies three principles to be followed in order to address the contextual processes involved in IS implementation: first, technology innovation should be considered in relation to socio‐organizational change; second, analysis should consider not only the local organizational, but also the national and international context; and third, analysis should consider both the technical/rational decisions and actions involved in the innovation process and the cultural, social and cognitive forces of such a process. These principles are demonstrated with the analysis of a case study of organizational reform in Cyprus.     

Successful Patterns of Internal SME Characteristics Leading to High Overall Innovation Performance

Small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) struggle with the paradox of developing new products and technologies on the one hand and minimizing costs on the other. These SMEs must be innovative to survive and grow. However, compared to large firms, SMEs have several problems in their innovation process, which negatively influence their overall innovation performance. This research explores successful patterns of internal SME characteristics that lead to high overall innovation performance. Cluster analyses were conducted to find patterns in the internal characteristics of SMEs with high overall innovation performance. We find that companies that focus on incremental innovation and that achieve high overall innovation performance indeed share a pattern in their internal organization, when controlling for innovation type. The paper adds to the current body of knowledge by comparing high‐ and low‐performing companies based on competence differences. Because real‐life organizations consist of multiple organizational characteristics, we also contribute to management practice by simultaneously addressing multiple organizational characteristics for the successful organization of innovation.     

Exploring the Use of Innovation Performance Measurement to Build Innovation Capability in a Medical Device Company

In order to increase their innovation capability, many organizations make the effort to actively change their R&D working practices. In parallel, measurement is an important issue with regard to managing innovation. In this paper, innovation management and measurement theory are combined with empirical investigations of experiences of using measurement as a support to the development of innovation capability in practice. The paper reports results from analysis of measurement data and a semi‐structured interview study, encompassing 19 interviews with managers and engineers involved in the current change activities of the case company. The study reveals that various innovation measurement mechanisms are used in different departments in the R&D organization, reflecting the diverse views of what constitutes innovation that dominate in each group, as well as the group's level of involvement in the on‐going building of innovation capability – from heavily involved (innovation leaders) to attentiveness from a distance (innovation laggards and progress evaluators). This, together with challenges related to identifying relevant metrics to support both incremental and radical innovation and managing existing reward and goal‐setting systems, is seen to have implications on the capability development in the organization requiring attention to how innovation measurement is designed, implemented and used in practice.     

Contextually enriched competence model in the field of sustainable manufacturing for simulation style technology enhanced learning environments

In order to remain competitive, engineers need to acquire competences necessary to attain the sustainability objectives that are emerging in the manufacturing industry. The training of current and future engineers needs to achieve two criteria: the learners need to be able to apply the learning into complex, life-like situations and the learning outcomes need to be achieved rapidly. Competence-based and technology-enhanced learning (TEL) in general and serious games and simulations in particular have recently attracted a great deal of attention as they have the potential to deliver on both accounts. Designing learning content for simulation style competence-based TEL environments places special demands on competence modelling. Competences are traditionally defined and modelled using internal-to-individual factors such as knowledge, skills and attitudes. However, designing simulation style competence-based TEL environments, such as serious games, cannot be based solely on these factors. In work situations competences are performed neither in solitude nor isolation. Contextual factors such as organization processes, laws and norms, the market and available technologies significantly influence competence performance. As the simulations in question need to be life-like constructions of work situations the role of contextual factors is heightened. In addition, the content area of sustainable manufacturing is novel, which adds to the challenge. The two main innovative contributions that are presented in this paper are: (1) an enhanced competence modelling methodology which aids in identifying and structuring relevant contextual factors that have an impact on the performance of the competences in question, and (2) the output of applying this methodology, i.e. a contextually enriched competence model in the field of sustainable manufacturing that can be used to facilitate the design of the TEL content for serious games and simulations. The work presented in the paper is a part of the European Seventh Framework Programme Integrated Project TARGET, the main aim of which is to develop a new genre of TEL environments that can be effectively used in engineering education to support future engineers’ rapid competence development in the field of sustainable manufacturing.     

Modelling mobile app requirements for semantic traceability

The paper presents a modelling method aimed to support the definition and elicitation of requirements for mobile apps through an approach that enables semantic traceability for the requirements representation. Business process-centricity is employed in order to capture requirements in a knowledge structure that retains procedural knowledge from stakeholders and can be traversed by semantic queries in order to trace domain-specific contextual information for the modelled requirements. Consequently, instead of having requirements represented as natural language items that are documented by diagrammatic models, the communication channels are switched: semantically interlinked conceptual models become the requirements representation, while free text can be used for requirements annotations/metadata. Thus, the method establishes a knowledge externalization channel between business stakeholders and app developers, also tackling the Twin Peaks bridging challenge (between requirements and early designs). The method is presented using its modelling procedure as a guiding thread, with each step illustrated by case-based samples of the modelling language and auxiliary functionality. The design work is encompassed by an existing metamodelling framework and introduces a taxonomy for modelling relations, since the metamodel is the key enabler for the goal of semantic traceability. The research was driven by the ComVantage EU research project, concerned with mobile app support for collaborative business process execution. Therefore, the project provides context for the illustrating examples; however, generalization possibilities beyond the project scope will also be discussed, with respect to both motivation and outcome.     

Agility in responding to disruptive digital innovation: Case study of an SME

Disruptive digital innovation (DDI) often creates hypercompetitive market environment that forces firms to be agile to survive and remain competitive. Whereas most studies have focused on larger firms' effort to be agile, few have looked at how small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) respond to DDI. The study attempts to answer the research question of how SMEs achieve agility to respond to DDI. Drawing on a case study of an innovative SME, our study develops a framework on agility based on the processes of mitigating organizational rigidity, developing innovative capabilities, and balancing the tension of organizational ambidexterity. Specifically, our findings show that for SMEs, mitigating organizational rigidity is enabled by the mechanism of achieving boundary openness while developing innovative capability is enabled by the mechanism of achieving organizational adaptability. At the same time, given the inherent challenges of resource constraints, SMEs also need to balance the tension of organizational ambidexterity.     

Integrated Structural–Architectural Design for Interactive Planning

Traditionally, building floor plans are designed by architects with their usability, functionality and architectural aesthetics in mind; however, the structural properties of the distribution of load‐bearing walls and columns are usually not taken into account at this stage. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for the design of architectural floor plans by integrating structural layout analysis directly into the planning process. In order to achieve this, we introduce a planning tool which interactively enforces checks for structural stability of the current design, and which on demand proposes how to stabilize it if necessary. Technically, our solution contains an interactive architectural modelling framework as well as a constrained optimization module where both are based on respective architectural rules. Using our tool, an architect can predict already in a very early planning stage whose designs are structurally sound such that later changes due to stability reasons can be prevented. We compare manually computed solutions with optimal results of our proposed automated design process in order to show how much our proposed system can help architects to improve the process of laying out structural models optimally.