The asymmetric effects of exploitation and exploration on radical and incremental innovation performance: An uneven affair
Journal
European Management Journal
ISSN
0263-2373
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2020
Author(s)
Abstract
Scholars have argued that the exploitation-–exploration interaction provides a source of com-petitive advantage beyond that provided by each individually. However, we know little about the mutual effects of exploitation and exploration on either incremental or radical innovation per-formance. To address this gap, we examine data from 171 manufacturing firms. We find incre-mental innovation performance is highest when exploitation interacts with an intermediary lev-el of exploration. Radical innovation performance, however, is solely driven by exploration. A coupling with exploitation is not effective. We contribute to the extant literature, first, by disentangling the interaction effects of exploitation and exploration on radical and incremental innovation performance, respectively. Second, we extend extant literature that agrees that main-taining an appropriate balance of exploitation and exploration is critical for innovation performance and that has conceptualized this balance as symmetrical presence and magnitude of exploitation and exploration. In particular, we provide evidence in support of an asymmetric relationship.
Language
English
Keywords
radical innovation
incremental innovation
exploitation
exploration
ambidexterity
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
HSG Profile Area
Global Center for Customer Insight
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Pergamon Press
Volume
38
Start page
121
End page
134
Subject(s)
Eprints ID
257119