Technological diversification ambidextrous innovation and firm performance: Considering the organizational moderators

Abstract

Although the issue of ambidextrous innovation is receiving increasing attention its antecedents moderators and consequences remain largely unexplored The goals of this study are therefore not only to investigate the performance effects of such innovation but also to identify the possible antecedents and moderators This study used a sample of 1 595 firm-year observations for manufacturing firms in the S&P 500 spanning the period 2001-2013 to test the proposed hypotheses The results show that a higher level of ambidextrous innovation leads to better performance A firm with a diversified technological portfolio is thus likely to achieve higher degrees of ambidextrous innovation as well as see better firm performance The empirical findings also reveal that ambidextrous innovation plays a mediating role in the relationship between technological portfolio and performance Furthermore absorptive capacity is found to strengthen the relationship between technological diversification and ambidextrous innovation while the moderating effect of financial slack on the relationship between technological diversification and ambidextrous innovation is not found

Date of Award	2015 Jul 2
Original language	English
Supervisor	Chinho Lin (Supervisor)