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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.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical and empirical understanding of how social ties affect innovation behavior and new product performance in Turkey, which is an emerging economy where high levels of economic and political uncertainties exist.The authors examine whether innovation behavior binds the political and business ties of the firm to new product performance. They also examine if these effects are contingent on variations in the institutional environment and market environment.

Structural equation modeling and mediation analyses were used on a sample of 344 small- and medium-sized enterprises in Istanbul.

Business ties are positively related to exploratory innovation behavior and political ties hamper such behavior. The authors also show that government support hinders firms’ disruptive innovation while encouraging incremental innovation behavior. The authors further demonstrate that the positive and indirect relation of business ties to new product performance through exploratory and exploitative innovation is largely insensitive to changes in market and institutional environments. Political ties are negatively (positively) and indirectly related to new product performance through exploratory (exploitative) innovation.

Managers should choose the form of their personal interactions (political and/or business) based on the type of innovation that is being pursued. Additionally, managers should consider both the institutional environment and the market environment as important contingencies in their decision of whether to invest resources in developing social ties to build innovation behavior.

The authors offer a deeper perspective of how social ties in emerging economies affect new product performance by considering exploratory and exploitative innovation behavior as mediating mechanisms. These mediating effects are conditional on institutional and market environments.

This paper aims to explore the impact of enterprise niche on dual innovation performance and the moderating role of innovation openness on the relationship between enterprise niche and dual innovation performance.

This study uses the panel data of the enterprise technology patents of China's Top 100 Electronic Information Enterprises from 2009 to 2018. Multiple regression analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

Niche width has a significant positive impact on exploitative and exploratory innovation performance. Niche overlap has an inverted U-shaped effect on exploitative innovation performance and significantly positively affects exploratory innovation performance. Innovation openness negatively moderates the impact of niche width on exploitative innovation performance and positively moderates the impact of niche overlap on exploitative innovation performance.

This study provides new insights into the effects of enterprise niche on dual innovation performance by showing the moderating role of innovation openness. The study finds a strategic logic of moderate niche overlap, clarifies the innovative effect of different innovation openness modes and reveals the construction and management mechanisms of enterprise niche and innovation openness strategy.

The purpose of the study was to analyse the impact of innovation ambidexterity represented by explorative and exploitative innovation capabilities and their combined effects on product innovation performance and to prove the mediating effect of decentralization.

The study uses partial least squares for structural equation models and SmartPLS version 3.3.1 on a sample of 174 Romanian medium- and large-sized firms from the IT industry to test six research hypotheses. To measure innovation ambidexterity, the orthogonal approach was used, conceptualizing innovation ambidexterity as a multidimensional, second-order construct composed of explorative and exploitative innovation capabilities. Innovation ambidexterity was conceptualized as a multiplicative term of both explorative and exploitative innovation capabilities.

The empirical results prove that innovation ambidexterity is positively correlated with product innovation performance, while decentralization is mediating the impact of innovation ambidexterity on product innovation performance in the IT industry.

The data was based on self-reported assessments of senior executives. While innovation ambidexterity may influence product innovation performance in the long term, such long-term effects are not assessed. Other studies found a moderating effect between centralization or decentralization and ambidexterity, while we found that it has a mediating effect.

In the context of innovation capability, the combination of explorative or exploitative capabilities may lead to a better synergy. Innovation ambidexterity influences product innovation performance through a synergistic effect, making the simultaneous combination of capabilities useful for firms willing to make efficient use of existing resources and make their capabilities mutually supportive. Moreover, for senior executives, the effects of decentralization as a mediator provide further incentive to include it in their development of firms' innovation capabilities.

This study extends findings of other studies by contributing to a deeper examination of the effects of decentralization, on innovation outcomes by focusing on a specific type of innovation, product innovation. Moreover, since innovation capability is often studied in small firms or in the manufacturing industry, this study contributes to the research on innovation capability and the consequences on innovation capability in the services sector and medium- and large-sized companies. By proving that decentralization mediates the effects of innovation ambidexterity on product innovation performance, it enables reconsideration of the organizational structure role in fostering innovation.

This study aims to examine whether exploitative and exploratory overseas R&D have independent and significant effects on emerging economy multinational enterprises' (EMNEs’) innovation performance and whether top management team (TMT) nationality diversity and openness have a moderating effect on these relationships.

This study analyzes data collected from Chinese-listed manufacturing enterprises for 2007 to 2018.

Empirical results show that both exploitative and exploratory overseas R&D can help improve EMNEs' innovation performance. The authors further find that TMT nationality diversity and TMT openness strengthen the aforementioned relationships.

This study presents the first empirical evidence showing whether and when exploitative and exploratory overseas R&D have independent and heterogeneous effects on EMNEs' innovation performance.

SMEs could achieve their innovation goals, either through exploitation, exploratory, or ambidextrous learning strategies. This study presents ambidexterity as a more effective and efficient strategy that offers superior innovation advantage to SMEs. We also present the role of openness in this relationship.

Empirical analysis was based on 388 SMEs in Ghana. Various validity and reliability checks were conducted before the presentation of the actual analysis, which was conducted using Ordinary Least Squares approach, run using SPSS (v. 20).

Findings indicate that although exploitative and exploratory learning strategies individually had a positive significant effect on SMEs' innovation performance, organizational learning ambidexterity was found to have a greater positive impact on innovation performance among SMEs. High levels of openness further boosted the effect of organizational learning ambidexterity on SMEs’ innovation performance.

This study was conducted without recourse to some specific factors that could influence organizational learning ambidexterity among SMEs. Future studies should thus pay particular attention to the determinants of organizational learning ambidexterity among SMEs.

Innovation performance is very critical for the sustainability of firms, and SMEs in particular. Management of SMEs must therefore seek to simultaneously adopt both learning strategies, as that gives firms greater advantage, compared to the adoption of only one strategy.

The study demonstrates that organizational learning ambidexterity had a superior effect on SMEs' innovation performance. High levels of openness further boosted the effect of organizational learning ambidexterity on SMEs' innovation performance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the knowledge breadth and depth and the balance of the two affect various dimensions of the innovation performance under the consideration of the organizational slack as a moderating factor of the analysis framework.

This study constructs and verifies a research model of knowledge breadth and depth to the explorative and exploitative innovation performance, using the exploratory factor analysis and the hierarchical regression analysis based on a survey sample of 320 Chinese companies.

The knowledge base is a critical foundation for improving innovation performance of an enterprise. A more detailed analysis reveals that first knowledge breadth provides more benefits for explorative innovation performance while the knowledge depth is more advantageous to exploitative innovation performance of an organization. Second, organizational slack can positively facilitate the improvement of the knowledge depth for the explorative innovation performance while an optimal balance of the knowledge breadth and depth can significantly enhance exploitative innovation performance.

This paper contributes to previous research work by providing both specific comparative studies and a clear explanation of the impacts of different dimensions of the knowledge base, i.e., knowledge breadth and knowledge depth, on innovation performance measures of both exploration and exploitation through a comprehensive empirical study. In particular, organizational slack is found to play a much more complicated moderation role between the knowledge base and the two different dimensions of innovation performance than has been demonstrated in previous research.

Drawing on the literature on dynamic skills, this study builds upon and empirically tests a conceptual model that connects business and political ties, organizational unlearning, organizational learning and firm performance. Specifically, this study suggests that business ties enable and political ties inhibit organizational unlearning (i.e. regenerative dynamic capability), which may, in turn, affect exploratory (i.e. renewing dynamic capability) and exploitative (i.e. incremental dynamic capability) innovation behaviors of the firm. Thus, the purpose of this study is to offer a theoretical framework in which organizational unlearning and learning act as mediating mechanisms between business and political ties and firm performance.

Structural equation modeling and mediation analyzes were used on a sample of 302 small and medium-size enterprises in Turkey.

This study found that business ties enable organizational unlearning while political ties impede it. This study further demonstrates that business ties positively and political ties negatively relate to organizational learning through organizational unlearning. In addition, this study shows that political ties are mostly negatively and indirectly related to firm performance through organizational learning while business ties positively and indirectly relate to firm performance.

The findings demonstrate the critical role that personal networks play in organizational learning and firm performance. This study provides evidence to the need to recognize and evaluate the potential and undesirable impacts of political ties on cultivating innovation skills and firm performance. In addition, this study recommends managers to embrace the significance of organizational unlearning in strategic renewal, particularly as it applies to building renewing and incremental dynamic skills for enhanced firm performance.

This study offers a deeper perspective of the dissected relations of social ties in emerging economies to firm performance by considering organizational unlearning and learning behaviors as mediating mechanisms.

This study is based on knowledge-based view to examine the relationships among buyer–supplier interaction, ambidextrous innovation and business performance. It includes competitive intensity and dysfunctional competition to clarify boundary conditions.

The ordinary least squares regression was conducted to test hypotheses. The survey data were collected from 182 Hong Kong manufacturing firms.

Buyer–supplier interaction facilitates ambidextrous innovation, namely exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation. In turn, exploitative innovation enhances business performance, whereas exploratory innovation has no influence on business performance. Competitive intensity strengthens while dysfunctional competition weakens the impact of buyer–supplier interaction on ambidextrous innovation.

This study is based on the knowing processes of knowledge-based view. It contends that business performance is derived from ambidextrous innovation, which depends on the utilization of acquired supplier knowledge and the influence of external competitive environment. The test of relationships is constrained by the single-source and cross-sectional data.

Firms should engage in buyer–supplier interaction to acquire and utilize supplier knowledge. Meanwhile, they should monitor competitive environment to seize opportunities and avoid threats.

This study builds a holistic framework for buyer–supplier interaction, which reconciles the mixed arguments by distinguishing its effects on ambidextrous innovation, and by clarifying boundary conditions in terms of competitive intensity and dysfunctional competition.

This paper aims to identify the relationships of both organizational isomorphism and knowledge search with the innovation performance of cluster enterprises. It also specifies the mechanism by which organizational isomorphism affects innovation performance, through knowledge search.

Firm-level data were collected with questionnaires distributed to cluster enterprises in Zhejiang Province, China, which produced 165 usable responses for the analysis. Both multiple regression analyses and structural equation modelling were used to test the hypotheses.

Normative isomorphism and mimetic isomorphism have inverse U-shaped effects on the innovation performance of cluster enterprises, as does exploratory knowledge search. Exploitative knowledge search and the balance between two types of knowledge search have positive effects on the innovation performance of cluster enterprises; exploratory and exploitative knowledge searches exert partial mediation effects between the organizational isomorphism and innovation performance of cluster enterprises. The mediating effect of knowledge search transforms the inverse U-shaped effect of normative isomorphism and mimetic isomorphism on innovation performance into a positive effect.

This study provides new insights into the effects of organizational isomorphism on innovation performance by showing the indirect influence of organizational isomorphism in clusters. The study proposes a strategic logic of moderate isomorphism, clarifies the innovative effect of different knowledge search modes and reveals the construction and management mechanisms of organizational isomorphism and knowledge search strategy of firms in clusters.