Ambidextrous Banlance Strategies For Enterprises' Innovation Search:Based On The Combination Of "Content-Distance-Behavior"

Innovation search is regarded as the dominant way to solve the contradiction between the lean and agile innovation and the limited resources of the enterprise, which is becoming more and more prominent under the new environment. However, innovation search involves many activities, these activities not only are indispensable for innovation, but are on the different or opposite logical base. It is easy to make the enterprises fall into the innovation "trap", if the enterprises pay excessive attention to the one while neglecting other innovation search activities. As a result, the study on the balance of innovation search enters into the vision of managers and scholars. Among them, the researches based on the Organizational Ambidexterity obtain a large number of practical and theoretical supports. However, existing research rarely adopts the view of multi-dimensional to describe the innovation search so that it is difficult to form complete ambidextrous balance strategies, and lack the judgment standard to determine whether to apply ambidextrous balance strategies so that the norm and rationality of ambidextrous balance strategies are restrained, and ignore to analyze the synergy mechanism and the internal or external contingency factors of ambidextrous balance strategies so that the "black box" of ambidextrous balance strategies is still not open.Under this background, the paper focuses on the basic proposition of "how to realize the ambidextrous balance of innovative search based on the combination of multiple dimensions", and studies the four sub problems layer by layer, (1)how to describe innovation search in a number of dimensions with multi-dimensions;(2)how to construct a more complete ambidextrous balance strategies for enterprises'innovation search scientifically and reasonably in multi-dimensional level;(3)how the ambidextrous balance strategies affect innovation performance, and what the effective of their implementation will be;(4) how the contingency factors, such as competition intensity, industry growth and contextual separation moderate the relationships between ambidextrous balance strategies and innovation performance.The thesis study adopts both normative analysis and positive analysis. To the first sub problem, the study based on the behavior logic of enterprise'innovation search and the theory of attention, find the key decisive points during the procession of innovation search, matching with the key decisive points, multiple dimensions are extracted to describe innovation search. To the second sub problem, the study based on the management paradigm of organizational ambidexterity, identify the competitive search tasks in multi-dimensional construction firstly, and then generalize the judgment standard to determine whether to apply organizational ambidexterity to make innovation search balanced, if feasible, the ambidextrous balance strategies will be arranged. To the third sub problem, through literature research and theoretical deduction, the study puts forward the research hypotheses concerning how the ambidextrous balance strategies of innovation search affect innovation performance. To the fourth sub problem, the study introduces competitive strength, industry growth and contextual separation as a moderator variable, puts forward the corresponding hypotheses. The study conduct the empirical test by the questionnaire survey data from 275 China enterprises, using the item score correlation coefficient method, AVE and CR, competition model comparison test and validity test, common method bias by correlation coefficient method, Harman single factor method, hierarchical regression analysis to verify the research hypotheses.As a result, the main conclusions are brought forward:Firstly, innovation search can be described by "content-distance-behavior" three dimensions. They echo the following three sequential decisions:what to search, where to search and how to search. The conclusion breaks through the single or two-dimensional division, and expands the research view and the connotation of the innovation search theory.Secondly, under "content-distance-behavior" three-dimensional construct, the enterprises will face with two groups of competitive search tasks, which are market knowledge search and technical knowledge search, bread search and deep search. In addition, it is necessary and feasible for enterprises to adopt ambidextrous balance strategies. Three categories of ambidextrous balance strategies are constructed, which is including six kinds'specific strategies. The first kind is ambidextrous balance between bread search and deep search when knowledge content of innovative search is same, which include market knowledge bread and deep ambidextrous search; technology knowledge bread and deep ambidextrous search. The second is ambidextrous balance between market knowledge search and technology knowledge search when bread or deep search is done, which include market knowledge bread and technology knowledge bread ambidextrous search; market knowledge deep and technology knowledge deep ambidextrous search. The third is ambidextrous balance cross bread or deep search in market knowledge and technology knowledge demains, which include market knowledge bread and technology knowledge deep ambidextrous search; market knowledge deep and technology knowledge bread ambidextrous search. The conclusion makes up the blank of adaptive judgment for ambidextrous governance, and standardizes the application of organizational ambidexterity.Thirdly, the mechanism and effect of ambidextrous balance strategies on the innovation performance are different. Compared with the single search strategy, the first strategy has a more significant positive effect on enterprise innovation performance though "conceptual synergies". Compared with the single search strategy, the second strategy doesn't exert positive effects on innovation performance and even will damage to innovation performance, despite "demand-supply synergies" is working. Compared with the single search strategy or other ambidextrous balance strategies, the third one has a most significant positive effect on innovation performance because the "conceptual synergies" and "demand-supply synergies" work together. The conclusion is useful to open the "black box" of ambidextrous balance strategies and innovation performance, and deepen the present studies.Finally, competition intensity, industry growth or contextual separation has different moderate effect separately. Competition intensity is greater, the positive effect of the first and third kind's strategies on innovation performance is more, the positive effect of the pure breadth search on innovation performance is greater, and the negative effect of the pure depth search on innovation performance is greater. Industry growth is higher, the positive impact of the first and third strategy on enterprise innovation performance is the smaller, and the negative impact of pure depth search on innovation performance is smaller. Context separation is higher, the positive impact of the first and the third strategy on innovation performance is the greater, and the negative impact of pure depth search on innovation performance is smaller.