Performance Gap,Network Strategy And Innovation Ambidexterity

Innovation ambidexterity is increasingly becoming essential for firms to respond to environmental changes and create competitive advantages.Based on cutting-edge issues of innovation ambidexterity research,this study focuses on the differentiation-integration perspective,aiming to analyze the deep-seated causative factors,the mechanism of balanced innovation ambidexterity(BIA)and combined innovation ambidexterity(CIA).The old saying,"'Precise knowledge of self and precise knowledge of the threat leads to victory," illustrates the importance of evaluating your strengths and those of your competitors.The behavioral theory of firm(BTOF)further points out that when performance does not reach an organization's social aspiration,decision-makers will initiate risky problem-oriented search actions until performance meet the aspiration level.The performance gap portrays the negative status of the organizational performance below the desired level,which provides a precise positioning for firms to assess their operating situation and the strategy execution effectiveness.It may stimulate the awareness and motivation of firms to implement innovation ambidexterity to reverse the competitive dilemma and reshape the industry's competitive landscape.However,few scholars have explored the formation mechanism of BIA and CIA under the performance gap.To fill this gap,it is necessary to open the black box between the performance gap and innovation ambidexterity by introducing multiple variables such as mediating variables and moderating variables.In the context of performance gaps,effectively implementing ambidextrous innovations is inseparable from the rational utilization and integration of resources.Under China's transitional economic system,business infrastructure is imperfect.To strengthen the role of existing resources and achieve performance rebound in the case of performance gaps,enterprises will inevitably acquire and leverage external resources through network connections,build new resource bases,and implement new resource integration and utilization to improve innovations or reconfigure innovation paths.Among them,network strategy is the primary path for enterprises to build network relationships and obtain resources.In contrast,the integration and utilization of resources cannot be achieved without resource orchestration capability.Through network broadening to acquire heterogeneous resources,using network deepening to absorb complex implicit resources,as well as through resource orchestration capabilities to reconfigure and allocate organizational resources,companies can build a resource base that fits ambidextrous innovations and improves the performance gap problem currently faced by companies,thus realizing a positive interaction between performance gaps,network strategy,and ambidextrous innovations.Based on this,this paper examines the mechanism whereby the performance gap affects BIA and CIA based on BTOF,social network theory,resource orchestration theory,and ambidexterity theory in the context of China's transition economies.This research also demonstrates the mediating role of network broadening and network deepening and the moderating role of resource orchestration capability.According to the measurement properties of the variables,the study designs two studies.In Study 1,this research takes listed firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Main Boards from 2007 to 2018 as research objects.It uses objective panel data to test the relationship between the performance gap and innovation ambidexterity.In Study 2,this article conducted a questionnaire survey on firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Main Boards in 2018 as the research sample to obtain valid subjective data on the variables of network broadening,network deepening,resource orchestration capability,and innovation ambidexterity.Finally,it formed a database containing 362 subjective and objective matched data to test the mediating effects of network broadening,network deepening,and the moderating effect of resource orchestration capability.The following research findings were obtained from this study by analyzing the objective panel data and the subjective and objective matched data:(1)The performance gap is significantly and positively related to the CIA and insignificantly related to BIA;(2)Network broadening and network deepening play an ambidextrous mediating role between performance gap-BIA,performance gap-CIA,respectively;(3)Network deepening plays a more substantial mediating role than network broadening in the implementation of BIA and CIA;(4)Resource orchestration capability positively moderates the relationship between network broadening-BIA,network broadening-CIA,network deepening-BIA,network deepening-CIA;(5)Resource orchestration capability positively moderates the mediating effect of network broadening and network deepening.This study investigates the impact mechanism of the performance gap on the innovation ambidexterity behavior of firms.The innovation points and theoretical contributions of this paper are reflected in the following three aspects:First,this study classifies innovation and focuses on exploring the driving effect of the performance gap on BIA and CIA from a social aspiration perspective.The balance and combination of exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation help firms to create sustainable competitive advantages.However,as a critical intrinsic element,performance influence strategic organizational actions,few studies have uncovered the feedback-driven role of organizational performance on BIA and CIA.Based on BTOF and ambidexterity theory,we find that the performance gap significantly impacts CIA,but not on BIA.Thus,our findings decode the formation motivation of innovation ambidexterity from a new perspective,provide methods for organizations to overcome the competitive dilemma,and inspire scholars further to analyze the differential nature of BIA and CIA.Second,this paper reveals the mediating role of network broadening and network deepening between the performance gap and innovation ambidexterity and finds that network deepening is a more critical path,highlighting the importance of the network in reversing performance dilemmas.Previous studies have mainly focused on the direct effect of the performance gap on innovation.Little attention has been paid and explored the mediating mechanisms between the performance gap and innovation.However,it is an indisputable fact that resource competitiveness is reduced for firms facing poor performance,and relying on existing resources may not support the successful implementation of innovation ambidexterity.To open the resource"black box" between performance gap and innovation ambidexterity,this study analyzes and verifies the dual parallel mediating role of network broadening and network deepening in the relationship between performance gap-BIA,performance gap-CIA from the resource acquisition perspective,respectively.It provides a deeper insight into the relationship between the performance gap and innovation ambidexterity,reveals the formation path of innovation ambidexterity under the performance gap,and highlights the vital role played by social networks.Third,this study reveals the contingency effect of resource orchestration capability on the mediating role of network broadening and network deepening from a resource utilization perspective.More and more firms are concerned about the utilization of social network resources beyond resource acquisition.Resource orchestration capability helps firms identify and obtain valuable resources in the network and allocate them appropriately within the organization to form a resource combination that meets the organization's specific needs,affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of innovation ambidexterity.According to resource orchestration theory,this study incorporates resource orchestration capability into the research framework.It analyzes the contingency effects of resource orchestration capability on the mediating role of network broadening and network deepening.On the one hand,this finding clarifies the boundary conditions for the mediating role of network broadening and network deepening and reveals the path options for firms to implement innovation ambidexterity under the performance gap.On the other hand,it enriches the application contexts of resource orchestration theory and the related studies on resource orchestration capability,which helps to inspire scholars to focus on resource utilization and management issues in the performance gap.The present study also has some limitations that need to be complemented by future investigations:first,this paper focuses on the performance gap generated by firms in terms of business performance,but performance is a multidimensional concept and future research should also pay attention to other measures of performance(growth,flexibility,etc.)and explore the development of a more complete measurement system.Second,limited by subjective and objective matching data,this article only concerns the degree of performance gaps and fails to explore the differential impact brought by the persistence of the performance gap,which can be supported by data in the future by incorporating temporal dynamics into the performance gap research framework.Finally,although a lot of work has been done in this paper in terms of subjective and objective data collection and processing,the data are still cross-sectional in nature,which cannot reflect the changes of independent and dependent variables at different stages.Therefore,relevant data can be collected year by year in the future to construct panel data revealing the dynamic changes of variables by themselves.