Search results

Existing studies have paid less attention to the impact of knowledge accumulation on digital transformation and its boundary conditions. Hence, this study aims to investigate the effects of ambidextrous knowledge accumulation on manufacturing digital transformation under the moderation of dynamic capability.

This study divides knowledge accumulation into exploratory and exploitative knowledge accumulation and divides dynamic capability into alliance management capability and new product development capability. To clarify the relationship among ambidextrous knowledge accumulation, dynamic capability and manufacturing digital transformation, the authors collect data from 421 Chinese listed manufacturing enterprises from 2016 to 2020 and perform analysis by multiple hierarchical regression method, heterogeneity test and robustness analysis.

The empirical results show that both exploratory and exploitative knowledge accumulation can significantly promote manufacturing digital transformation. Keeping ambidextrous knowledge accumulation in parallel is more conducive than keeping single-dimensional knowledge accumulation. Besides, dynamic capability positively moderates the relationship between ambidextrous knowledge accumulation and manufacturing digital transformation. Moreover, the heterogeneity test shows that the impact of ambidextrous knowledge accumulation and dynamic capabilities on manufacturing digital transformation varies widely across different industry segments or different regions.

First, this paper shifts attention to the role of ambidextrous knowledge accumulation in manufacturing digital transformation and expands the connotation and extension of knowledge accumulation. Second, this study reveals that dynamic capability is a vital driver of digital transformation, which corroborates the previous findings of dynamic capability as an important driver and contributes to enriching the knowledge management literature. Third, this paper provides a comprehensive micro measurement of ambidextrous knowledge accumulation and digital transformation based on the development characteristics of the digital economy era, which provides a theoretical basis for subsequent research.

Resource reconfiguration enables firms to adapt in dynamic environments by supplementing, removing, recombining, or redeploying resources. Whereas prior research has underscored the merits of resource reconfiguration and the modes for implementing it, little is known about the antecedents of this practice. According to prior research, under given industry conditions, resource reconfiguration is prompted by a firm’s corporate strategy and by characteristics of its knowledge assets. We complement this research by identifying learning from performance feedback as a fundamental driver of resource reconfiguration. We claim that performance decline relative to aspiration motivates the firm’s investment in knowledge reconfiguration, and that this investment is reinforced by the munificence of complementary resources in its industry, although uncertainty about the availability of such resources limits that investment. Testing our conjectures with a sample of 248 electronics firms during the period 1993–2001, we reveal a clear distinction between exploitative reconfiguration, which combines existing knowledge elements, and exploratory reconfiguration, which incorporates new knowledge elements. We demonstrate that performance decline relative to aspiration motivates a shift from exploitative reconfiguration to exploratory reconfiguration. Moreover, munificence of complementary resources mitigates the tradeoff between exploratory and exploitative reconfigurations, whereas uncertainty weakens the motivation to engage in both types of reconfiguration, despite the performance gap. Nevertheless, codeployment, which extends the deployment of knowledge assets to additional domains, is more susceptible to uncertainty than redeployment, which withdraws those assets from their original domain and reallocates them to new domains. Our study contributes to emerging research on resource reconfiguration, extends the literature on learning from performance feedback, and advances research on balancing exploration and exploitation.

Exploitative leadership as a form of destructive leadership may hinder employees' knowledge sharing. However, how and when exploitative leadership impacts employees' knowledge sharing is under explored. Drawing on fairness heuristic theory, this study aims to construct a moderated mediation model to investigate the impacting mechanisms of exploitative leadership on employees' knowledge sharing by introducing organization-based self-esteem as a mediator and perceived organizational procedural justice as a moderator.

To test the research model, data were collected from 148 full-time employees at two-time points and analyzed using partial least square-structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM).

Exploitative leadership has a direct negative impact on knowledge sharing. Through the mediation of organization-based self-esteem, exploitative leadership has an indirect impact on knowledge sharing. Organizational procedural justice can weaken the indirect negative relationship between exploitative leadership and knowledge sharing via organization-based self-esteem.

This study is the first to introduce fairness heuristic theory to explain the relationship between exploitative leadership and knowledge sharing. Findings about the mediating role of organizational self-esteem and the moderating role of organizational procedural justice in the relationship between exploitative leadership and knowledge sharing can uncover the black box of how exploitative leadership affects knowledge sharing.

Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, the present research paper examines the moderating role of leaders' Machiavellianism in the relationships between the desire for promotion, workplace anxiety and exploitative leadership.

The authors collected matched time-lagged data from part-time MBA students and their subordinates. The subordinate questionnaires were paired and coded by the researchers and then directly distributed and instructed to be filled out, which would not be known to the MBA students. The final sample size came to 370 leader-subordinate dyads. The data were analyzed using SPSS 24 and Mplus 7.0.

Leaders' desire for promotion is positively related to exploitative leadership via workplace anxiety. Furthermore, this mediating effect is significant when Machiavellianism is high, but not when Machiavellianism is low.

For business ethics scholars and practitioners, this study points out that leaders with a desire for promotion can produce workplace anxiety, lead to subordinates' perception of exploitative leadership and how this process varies by key personality trait—Machiavellianism.

Integrating appraisal theories of discrete emotions with the emotion regulation literature, this study aims to explore the relationships between exploitative leadership and certain types of counterproductive workplace behavior (CWB). Besides, this study seeks to examine the mediating roles of discrete emotions (i.e. anger and fear) and the moderating role of cognitive reappraisal within the proposed relationships.

Based on time-lagged survey data from 440 Chinese employees, this study conducted hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping approach to test the hypotheses.

The results revealed that exploitative leadership was positively related to approach-oriented CWB and avoidance-oriented CWB. In addition, this study found that anger mediated the relationship between exploitative leadership and approach-oriented CWB, whereas fear mediated the relationship between exploitative leadership and avoidance-oriented CWB. Further, cognitive reappraisal buffered the positive effects of exploitative leadership on anger and fear and the indirect effects of exploitative leadership on approach-oriented CWB (via anger) and avoidance-oriented CWB (via fear).

Managers should reduce leaders' exploitation and enhance employees' skills on emotional management and cognitive reappraisal.

First, by verifying the effects of exploitative leadership on both approach-oriented and avoidance-oriented CWB, this study adds to the literature on exploitive leadership and provides a more complete understating of the relationship between exploitative leadership and workplace deviance. Second, this study enriches the understanding of the process through which exploitative leadership affects employees by demonstrating the novel mediating roles of discrete emotions (i.e. anger and fear) through the lens of appraisal theories of discrete emotions. Third, by verifying the moderating role of cognitive reappraisal, this study provides insights into the boundary conditions of the influences of exploitive leadership.

Based on self-determination theory, this research paper aims to explore the implication of exploitative leadership for hospitality employees’ proactive customer service performance (PCSP) via harmonious passion for work (HPFW) and the moderating mechanism of power distance.

The authors’ sample included a total of 207 leader–follower dyads from three Chinese hotels. Hierarchical multiple regression and the PROCESS macro were used to analyze the data.

The results indicated that exploitative leadership has a negative indirect relationship with hospitality employees’ PCSP through decreased HPFW, and power distance plays a protective role of alleviating the negative implications of exploitative leadership for hospitality employees’ HPFW and PCSP.

Hotels are suggested to develop strict codes of conduct and adopt zero-tolerance policies for exploitative leadership. Additionally, hotels should also act to improve employees’ HPFW and pay attention to low-power-distance employees.

This research enriches exploitative leadership literature by investigating its effect on PCSP. Further, this research investigates HPFW as a mechanism linking exploitative leadership to PCSP. Finally, this research establishes the relationships among exploitative leadership, HPFW and PCSP by investigating the contingent impact of power distance.

The purpose of this study is to examine the underlying mechanisms of exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation between social media usage and organizational agility, and elucidate the moderating role of learning goal orientation (LGO) in the above relationships, based on adaptive structuration theory (AST).

Based on a multiple-respondent matched survey of 334 Chinese e-commerce firms, authors employed structural equation modeling to examine the correlations among social media usage, exploitative innovation, exploratory innovation and organizational agility. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to examine the moderating role of LGO.

This study's empirical findings demonstrate that exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation mediate the relationship between social media usage and organizational agility in different ways. Further, LGO positively moderates the relationship between social media usage for customer acquisition and exploratory innovation, as well as the relationship between social media usage for customer relationship and exploitative innovation.

Firms are advised to leverage different types of social media usage to facilitate exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation and promote organizational agility. In addition, LGO within a firm should be established to enhance the effects of social media usage on exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation.

This study adds to the literature on social media usage by proposing and examining exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation as explanatory mechanisms to facilitate organizational agility. This study further identifies LGO as a boundary condition of social media usage's effect on exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation. By contextualizing social media as advanced information technology, this study contributes to the contextualization of AST in the social media context.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of team psychological capital (PsyCap) on team innovation. The study also examines the mediating role of team learning, including exploratory and exploitative learning, in team innovation.

A sample of 272 team leaders of firms in Vietnam was surveyed to validate the measures via confirmatory factor analysis and to test the model and hypotheses using structural equation modeling.

The results demonstrate that team PsyCap has a positive effect on team innovation. Further, team exploratory learning mediates the relationship between team PsyCap and team innovation; however, team exploitative learning does not. Although team exploitative learning is explained by team PsyCap, it does not enhance team innovation.

The study findings suggest that, to enjoy a high level of team exploratory and exploitative learning and innovation, firms should develop team PsyCap. This could be undertaken by implementing leader–subordinate mentoring programs, together with creating a social context that helps in interacting and communicating among team members.

This study is among the first to examine the role of team PsyCap in team exploratory and exploitative learning and innovation, adding further insight to the literature on innovation at the team level.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact of a firm's innovation activities on performance, and focus on the internal fit and external fit of two types of innovation activities – exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation.

The paper adopts the survey data of 397 enterprises in eastern, middle, and western China. The business strategy attributes analysis based on strategic orientation of business enterprises (STROBE) scale was used to classify the business strategy types, and hierarchical regression analyses were employed to test the hypotheses.

The results show: both exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation have a positive effect on firm performance; the internal fit between exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation, whether it is fit as moderating or fit as matching, has no significant effect on firm performance; the fit between innovation activity and firm business strategy has significant effect on firm performance, therefore, exploratory innovation activity fits defenders and exploitative innovation activity fits prospectors; and the fit between the innovation activity and external environment has a slight effect on firm performance. Environmental competitiveness can enhance exploratory innovation outcome but diminish exploitative innovation outcome.

The paper has supplied the empirical evidence discovered in the context of China to the theoretical views of exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation, and achieved some results which differ from the ones drawn by similar researches done abroad.

Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to explore the influencing mechanism of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding. Specifically, this study focuses on the mediating role of psychological distress and the moderating role of hostile attribution bias in affecting the mediation.

Data were collected from 324 employees of a high-technology company in China by a three-wave questionnaire survey. Hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping approach were employed to test hypotheses.

This study found that exploitative leadership was positively related to knowledge hiding and that psychological distress mediated this relationship. Moreover, the results revealed that the positive relationship between exploitative leadership and psychological distress and the indirect effect of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding via psychological distress were stronger when hostile attribution was high rather than low.

The findings of this study offer guidance for managers to better undermine the negative effects of exploitative leadership.

First, this study extends the literature on exploitative leadership by verifying the positive effect of exploitative leadership on knowledge hiding. Second, this study enriches one’s understanding of the “black box” underlying the link between exploitative leadership and its consequences by demonstrating the mediating role of psychological distress. Third, by verifying the moderating role of hostile attribution bias, this study provides insights into the boundary conditions of the impact of exploitative leadership.