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Due to the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, increasing the use of AI in healthcare is critical, but few studies have explored the extent to which physicians cooperate with AI in their work to achieve productive and innovative performance, which is a key issue in operations management (OM). We conducted empirical research to answer this question.

We developed a conceptual model based on the ambidextrous perspective. To test our model, we collected data from 200 Chinese hospitals. One senior and one junior physician from each hospital participated in this research so that we could get a more comprehensive view. Based on the sample of 400 participants and the conceptual model, we examined whether different types of AI use have distinct impacts on physicians’ productivity and innovation by conducting hierarchical regression and post hoc tests. We also introduced team psychological safety climate (TPSC) and AI technology uncertainty (AITU) as moderators to investigate this topic in further detail.

We found that augmentation AI use is positively related to overall productivity and innovative job performance, while automation AI use is negatively related to these two outcomes. Furthermore, we focused on the impacts of the ambidextrous use of AI on these two outcomes. The results highlight the positive impacts of complementary use on both outcomes and the negative impact of balance on innovative job performance. TPSC enhances the positive impacts of complementary use on productivity, whereas AITU inhibits the negative impacts of automation and balanced use on innovative job performance.

In the age of AI, organizations face greater trade-offs between performance and technology management. This study contributes to the OM literature from the perspectives of operational performance and technology management in three ways. First, it distinguishes among different AI implementations and their diverse impacts on productivity and innovative performance. Second, it identifies the different conditions under which automation AI use and augmentation are superior. Third, it extends the ambidextrous perspective by becoming an early adopter of this approach to explore the implications of different types of AI use in light of contingency factors.