Exploration vs. exploitation: An empirical test of the ambidexterity hypothesis

Organization Science

Volumn 15, Issue 4, 2004, Pages 481-495

  He, Zi Lin ^a   Wong, Poh Kam ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO   (New Zealand)

^b NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE   (Singapore)

Author keywords

Ambidextrous organization; Innovation strategy; Technological innovation

Indexed keywords

EID: 4344670037     PISSN: 10477039     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1040.0078     Document Type: Review

References (51)

1. Abernathy, W. J., J. M. Utterback. 1978. Patterns of industrial innovation. Tech. Rev. 80 40-47.
2. Ancona, D. G., P. S. Goodman, B. S. Lawrence, M. L. Tushman. 2001. Time: A new research lens. Acad. Management Rev. 26 645-663.
3. Argyris, C., D. A. Schön. 1978. Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
4. Bierly, P., A. Chakrabarti. 1996. Generic knowledge strategies in the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. Strategic Management J. 17(Winter) 123-137.
5. Bierly, P., P. S. Daly. 2001. Exploration and exploitation in small manufacturing firms. 61th Annual Meeting Acad. Management, Washington, D.C. (August 3-8).
6. Brown, S. L., K. M. Eisenhardt. 1998. Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
7. Burgelman, R. A. 1991. Intraorganizational ecology of strategy making and organizational adaptation: Theory and field research. Organ. Sci. 2 239-262.
8. Burgelman, R. A. 2002. Strategy as vector and the inertia of coevolutionary lock-in. Admin. Sci. Quart. 47 325-357.
9. Burns, T., G. M. Stalker. 1961. The Management of Innovation. Tavistock, London, U.K.
10. Carroll, G. R., M. T. Hannan. 2000. The Demography of Corporations and Industries. Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
11. Cheng, Y. T., A. H. Van de Ven. 1996. Learning the innovation journey: Order out of chaos? Organ. Sci. 7 593-614.
12. Corporate Handbook. 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997. A definitive guide to listed companies on KLSE main board. CEIC Holdings Ltd., Singapore.
13. Corporate Handbook. 2000, 1999, 1998, 1997. A definitive guide to listed companies on KLSE second board. CEIC Holdings Ltd., Singapore.
14. Cyert, R. M., J. G. March. 1963. A Behavioral Theory of the Firm. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
15. D'Aveni, R. 1994. Hypercompetition: Managing the Dynamics of Strategic Maneuvering. Free Press, New York.
16. Eisenhardt, K. M., J. A. Martin. 2000. Dynamic capabilities: What are they? Strategic Management J. 21 1105-1121.
17. Financial Highlights of Companies on the Stock Exchange of Singapore. 1995-1999. CBRD, National University of Singapore, Singapore.
18. Ghemawat, P., J. E. Ricart i Costa. 1993. The organizational tension between static and dynamic efficiency. Strategic Management J. 14(Winter) 59-73.
19. Hannan, M. T., J. H. Freeman. 1984. Structural inertia and organizational change. Amer. Sociological Rev. 49 149-164.
20. Heckman, J. J. 1979. Sample selection bias as a specification error. Econometrica 47 153-162.
21. Henderson, A. D. 1999. Firm strategy and age dependence: A contingent view of the liabilities of newness, adolescence, and obsolescence. Admin. Sci. Quart. 44 281-314.
22. Holmqvist, M. 2004. Experiential learning processes of exploration and exploitation within and between organizations: An empirical study of product development. Organ. Sci. 15 70-81.
23. Katila, R., G. Ahuja. 2002. Something old, something new: A longitudinal study of search behavior and new product introduction. Acad. Management J. 45 1183-1194.
24. Knott, A. M. 2002. Exploration and exploitation as complements. N. Bontis, C. W. Choo, eds. The Strategic Management of Intellectual Capital and Organizational Knowledge: A Collection of Readings. Oxford University Press, New York, 339-358.
25. Leonard-Barton, D. 1995. Wellsprings of Knowledge. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, MA.
26. Levinthal, D. A. 1997. Adaptation on rugged landscapes. Management Sci. 43 934-950.
27. Levinthal, D. A., J. G. March. 1993. The myopia of learning. Strategic Management J. 14 95-112.
28. Levitt, B., J. G. March. 1988. Organizational learning. Annual Rev. Sociology 14 319-340.
29. Lewin, A. Y., C. P. Long, T. N. Carroll. 1999. The coevolution of new organizational forms. Organ. Sci. 10 535-550.
30. March, J. G. 1991. Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning. Organ. Sci. 2 71-87.
31. McGrath, R. G. 2001. Exploratory learning, innovative capacity, and managerial oversight. Acad. Management J. 44 118-131.
32. Mitchell, W., K. Singh. 1993. Death of the lethargic: Effects of expansion into new technical subfields on performance in a firm's base business. Organ. Sci. 4 152-180.
33. Nonaka, I., R. Toyama. 2002. A firm as a dialectical being: Towards a dynamic theory of a firm. Indust. Corporate Change 11 995-1009.
34. OECD. 1996. Science, Technology and Industry Outlook 1996. OCED, Paris, France.
35. OECD-EUROSTAT. 1997. Proposed Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Technological Innovation Data, Oslo Manual, 2nd ed. OECD, Paris, France.
36. Peter, T. 1990, Get innovative or get dead. California Management Rev. 33 9-26.
37. Poole, M. S., A. H. Van de Ven. 1989. Towards a metatheory of innovation process. 49th Annual Meeting Acad. Management, Washington, D.C. (August 13-16).
38. Radner, R. 1975. A behavioral model of cost reduction. Bell J. Econom. 6 196-215.
39. Rosenkopf, L., A. Nerkar. 2001. Beyond local search: Boundary-spanning, exploration, and impact in the optical disk industry. Strategic Management J. 22 287-306.
40. Singapore 1000. 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000. Report: Previous year performance. DP Information Network Pte. Ltd., Singapore.
41. Singapore SME 500. 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000. Report: Previous year performance. DP Information Network Pte. Ltd., Singapore.
42. Skinner, W. 1992. The shareholder's delight: Companies that achieve competitive advantage from process innovation. Internat. J. Tech. Management 7 41-48.
43. Sutton, J. 1997. Gibrat's legacy. J. Econom. Literature 35 40-59.
44. Timmons, J. 1999. New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century, 5th ed. Irwin/McGraw-Hill, Boston, MA.
45. Tushman, M. L., C. O'Reilly. 1996. Ambidextrous organizations: Managing evolutionary and revolutionary change. California Management Rev. 38 8-30.
46. Van den Bosch, F. A. J., H. W. Volberda, M. de Boer. 1999. Coevolution of firm absorptive capacity and knowledge environment: Organizational forms and combinative capabilities. Organ. Sci. 10 551-568.
47. Venkatraman, N. 1989. The concept of fit in strategy research: Toward verbal and statistical correspondence. Acad. Management Rev. 14 423-444.
48. Winter, S. G., G. Szulanski. 2001. Replication as strategy. Organ. Sci. 12 730-743.
49. Wong, P. K. 2002. Globalization of American, European and Japanese production networks and the growth of Singapore's electronics industry. Internat. J. Tech. Management 24(7/8) 843-869.
50. Zahra, S. A., S. R. Das. 1993. Innovation strategy and financial performance in manufacturing companies: An empirical analysis. Production Oper. Management 2 15-37.
51. Zairi, M. 1992. Competitive Benchmarking: An Executive Guide. Technical Communications (Publishing) Ltd., Letchworth, U.K.