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This study aims to explore the innovation deployment of construction contracting firms through exploratory–exploitative learning and organisational ambidexterity.

Firstly, a literature-based conceptual framework was developed to explain innovation implementation through exploratory–exploitative learning and organisational ambidexterity. A prominent Hong Kong construction contracting firm was then selected as the case study to explore its innovation deployment at different organisational levels (i.e. firm and project levels). Qualitative data were attained by conducting 12 semi-structured interviews with industry experts and document analysis. The thematic analysis using NVivo 12 software was adopted to analyse data.

Findings reveal that the case study firm successfully fosters innovation when ambidexterity is achieved through the balance between exploratory (i.e. radical innovation) and exploitative learnings (i.e. incremental innovation).

Establishing uniform ambidexterity (i.e. 50:50) at the firm or project level is not mandatory to deploy innovation successfully. The ratio can vary based on the characteristics and requirements of construction firms.

This paper shall motivate construction practitioners to adopt radical–incremental innovation ambidexterity in firms and ultimately enhance the productivity and efficiency of the construction industry.

Previous construction innovation research has frequently explored firm or project-level innovation separately. This study identified a multi-level focus on innovation. Through the lens of exploratory–exploitative theory, different forms of innovation ambidexterity for different levels are suggested rather than one specific ambidexterity.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use networks to overcome knowledge deficiencies in pursuing innovation. However, balancing the cost and risk of growing networks, especially internationally, with potential gains in knowledge remains a critical challenge. Searching for innovation knowledge in international and domestic networks can be complementary when learning is compressed or as competing when the SMEs capacity to use the new knowledge is exceeded. This paper aims to investigate whether knowledge searches in domestic and international networks are complementary or conflicting in pursuit of innovation.

This study is based on firm-level data set comprising 426 SMEs located in New Zealand, an advanced small and open economy. Using multi-level modelling, this study tests competing hypotheses, asking whether domestic and international network searches are complements or substitutes when seeking ambidexterity.

The research finds that, in contrast to earlier research, which shows increasing network breadth drives innovation activity, SMEs benefit less from knowledge search across combined domestic and international networks for exploration innovation and ambidexterity. In contrast, exploitation shows no effect, suggesting that combined networks could support exploitation.

This paper highlights how SMEs mitigate the influence resource constraints have on the partnerships they form and how this translates to ambidexterity. Specifically, recognising that an opportunistic approach to network development may impose future constraints on SME ambidexterity. From a management perspective, the paper recognises that balancing knowledge search across domestic and international networks can facilitate ambidexterity; however, to prevent spreading resources too thinly, this likely requires exit from early domestic innovation network partnerships.

The purpose of this study is to explore the agile project management (APM) approach through the contextual ambidextrous lens by overcoming the traditional perspective that separates projects within the opposite planned-exploitation- and emergent-exploration-oriented forms.

This study uses a grounded approach to five different agile-oriented companies for discovering how agile adoption shows both emergent (exploration-oriented) and planned (exploitation-oriented) tensions in a perspective that connects, rather than separates, them.

This study discovers five main categories, namely, approach, objectives, boundaries, leadership and feedback, that capture the tensions between planned and emergent issues of agile projects. The identified variables interact with different intervening conditions of the APM attributes (i.e. road map, product backlog, team backlog and solution delivery), activating different response actions (“exploitation embedded in exploration” and vice-versa), requiring, as a consequence, the need for contextual ambidexterity.

This study identifies different implications based on real project contexts, as the importance of a more complete picture of the APM approach, which also considers the combination of planned and emergent aspects of projects and, as consequence, the needs for dual capacities (T-shaped skills) both at project management and team levels.

This study identifies, in real project contexts, the relevance of integration between the corporate level and the agile project team. This implies the search for constant dialogue, with feedback exchange spread across all levels, also enabled by an integrated leadership approach.

This study highlights agile tensions in a real-world project context by describing how APM connects both explorative and exploitative aspects of change within the same APM initiative, in order to manage such tensions, which differs from previous studies that consider APM in alternation with a linear project management approach as stage-gate.

Innovation ambidexterity is crucial for fostering growth and gaining a competitive advantage in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Previous research indicates that achieving a balance between exploration and exploitation is a multifaceted phenomenon occurring across various levels. This paper aims to examine the influence of individual, organizational and institutional factors on the ambidextrous innovation of Chinese niche leaders using a configurational perspective.

This study uses secondary data collected from 69 Chinese niche leaders in the new equipment manufacturing industry. The authors use fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to investigate how owner openness, age, digitization, the formal institutional environment and the informal institutional environment jointly influence innovation ambidexterity.

By using fuzzy set analysis, this study categorizes combinations of interdependent factors that promote innovation ambidexterity. In particular, the authors pinpoint three configurations that foster high innovation ambidexterity and two configurations that lack such high levels of innovation ambidexterity. The analysis results suggest that innovation paradoxes in SMEs are linked to a nested system comprising leadership, organizational factors and the institutional environment.

This study elucidates the mechanism of innovation ambidexterity through a configurational perspective. This research proposes and validates a framework that enables SMEs to develop ambidextrous innovation capabilities, thereby integrating organizational ambidexterity theory and shedding light on the intricately complex nature of innovation ambidexterity.

Growing attention has been paid to bricolage as a strategic means to overcome resource constraints in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In the industrial market, a bricolage strategy and ambidextrous action may help firms to remain competitive by responding quickly to the business-to-business marketing. Despite its paramount importance, questions as to how bricolage is strengthened and how bricolage improves innovation ambidexterity have remained unanswered. This study aims to develop an integrated model for the relationships among environmental turbulence, learning orientation, ambidexterity and performance, with a particular focus on the mediation of bricolage.

Building on the literature review regarding the key constructs, hypotheses were developed. Data were collected using questionnaires from 229 SMEs in South Korea. To test hypothesis, structural equation modeling and Monte Carlo method for assessing mediation were performed.

Results reveal that environmental turbulence and learning orientation are positively associated with bricolage, which sequentially affects ambidextrous action as a driver of performance. The findings also indicate that bricolage significantly mediates the relationship between its antecedents and ambidexterity.

This research contributes to advancing our understanding of the role of a bricolage strategy for innovation ambidexterity and performance in SMEs. This study is the first to examine the mediation of bricolage between environmental factors and ambidexterity for improved performance.

Firm innovative performance in emerging markets must take into account the peculiarities of their competitive environment. Research on the effect of innovation on firm performance focuses mainly on high-tech firms in developed countries. This study proposes a model that empirically examines how technological and non-technological innovation influence Peruvian manufacturing firms' performance.

Using the resource-based view, a model is proposed that allows the mediation effects of technological innovation and non-technological innovation on firm performance among low and medium-low technological intensity manufacturing firms to be analyzed. The study uses structural equation modeling and mediation analysis with data from 503 Peruvian firms researched in the 2012 National Survey of Innovation.

The model's validation shows that the integrated perspective is relevant for emerging markets like Peru. Moreover, the results confirm that technological and non-technological innovation and their interrelationship are important for understanding the performance dimensions of Peruvian manufacturing firms.

This paper contributes to the literature on innovation in Latin American economies, proposing and validating a model that combines the mediation effects of technological and non-technological innovation to explain the relevant dimensions of firm performance in emerging markets.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how organizations manage and integrate exploration and exploitation across the innovation project portfolio. Such ambidextrous capabilities are required for organizations to innovate and succeed in today's rapidly changing competitive environment. Understanding how exploration and exploitation projects are integrated can illustrate ways to enhance ambidexterity and boost learning for the benefit of both approaches.

A multiple-case study approach was used to explore innovation portfolio management in six large organizations that emphasize innovation in their strategies.

The findings draw upon concepts of paradox and contingency to reveal that the inherent tension between formality and flexibility in managing innovation project portfolios is aligned with the need for organizational ambidexterity that maintains effective exploitative innovation while supporting explorative innovation capabilities. Four integration mechanisms are identified that enhance ambidexterity across the innovation portfolio by embedding processes for transition from exploration to exploitation and cross-fertilizing knowledge to build innovation capability across both exploration and exploitation.

Managers may find inspiration on ways to enhance learning by bridging exploration and exploitation projects from the four types of integration mechanisms. Recognizing the paradoxical nature of the tension between formality and flexibility in project and portfolio management may also help guide organizations to effectively develop ambidextrous approaches to enhance overall innovation outcomes.

In contrast to perspectives which suggest that paradox and contingency approaches represent disparate perspectives, the authors demonstrate how they can complement each other and work together through innovation portfolio management to support ambidexterity at the portfolio and project levels.

Digital transformation (DT) is among the vital factors contributing to innovation ambidexterity, especially for advanced manufacturing firms (AMFs). However, the empirical studies on the relationship between DT and innovation ambidexterity in AMFs from the perspective of knowledge management are inadequate. Therefore, this study aims to systematically analyze the impact of DT on innovation ambidexterity and its mechanism of action.

This study selects 254 listed firms within the ten key areas of “Made in China 2025,” as they occupy a key position in China’s advanced manufacturing system. Based on the knowledge-based view (KBV) and contingency theory, it constructs a model of the influence mechanism of DT on innovation ambidexterity.

The results show that the DT of AMFs positively influence innovation ambidexterity. External pressure from environmental turbulence enhances the positive relationship between DT and innovation ambidexterity, demonstrating the “resilience effect,” external knowledge search (EKS) and broadening the knowledge base mediating roles between them, highlighting the “accumulation effect.”

By identifying this mediation mechanism of DT and innovation ambidexterity, this study provides new ideas for path research on the KBV. Moreover, this study explores the triggering effect of market environmental turbulence on the DT of firms. It reveals the boundary conditions of DT acting on innovation ambidexterity, expands the research perspective on organizational resilience and enriches the theory of power change.

This study aims to understand the impact of leadership styles on the sustainability of organizational energy, using the mediator role of organizational ambidexterity in family firms in Malaysia. To this end, dual-stage Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) were adopted to determine the leadership style of family firms in Malaysia.

An exploratory design (i.e. questionnaire) was used to collect data from 528 workers in the family firms in Malaysia.

According to the results, leadership styles and long-term organizational energy have a positive and significant relationship. Furthermore, organizational ambidexterity mediates the relationship between leadership styles and organizational energy sustainability. On the other hand, based on nonlinear and compensatory relationships, the ANN method predicted a bureaucratic leadership style typical in Malaysian family businesses. The results of this study indicate transformational, transactional and bureaucratic leadership styles affect sustainable organizational energy. Besides, organizational ambidexterity fully mediates the relationship between leadership styles and sustainable organizational energy. On the other hand, the results of non-compensatory relationships revealed organizational ambidexterity is the most determinant of sustainable organizational energy, followed by bureaucratic leadership. As a result, leadership styles encourage human resources to perform tasks with energy and vitality. In family businesses, bureaucratic leadership increases job immersion and positive motivations toward work challenges.

From a practitioner's perspective, leaders and practitioners must encourage creativity and idea generation to give members sufficient strength to work and focus on goals that support building sustainable organizational energy. A family business is a type of capitalism that significantly impacts employees. The family-owned businesses surveyed by first-generation families lack subsidiaries and are ingrained in a paternalistic culture that offers employees greater security at a lower wage. Although there are few details, the study sample size is small and has limitations. This study suggests that understanding the leadership styles on sustainable organizational energy and using the mediator role of organizational ambidexterity in the family business has immense value. Characteristics such as transformational, transactional and bureaucratic leadership styles have a significant role in sustainable organizational energy. Also, organizational ambidexterity is the mediator for the relationship between leadership styles and sustainable organizational energy.

This study sheds light on the effect of leadership styles on sustainable organizational energy through organizational ambidexterity in family firms. In this context, the novelty of this study includes two perceptions. The first explored the impact of exploration and exploitation on sustainable organizational energy. The second investigates linear and nonlinear relationships to predict sustainable organizational energy determinants.

This study aims to develop a cross-level research model to explore the relationship between team-level contextual ambidexterity and employees' enterprise system (ES) ambidextrous use, and the mediating role of user empowerment in and moderating effect of leader–member exchange (LMX) on the relationship.

This study conducted a sequential mixed-methods approach, which included a quantitative survey and a qualitative case study. The survey, administered to 244 employees in 59 groups from a financial institution, analyzed the relationships between contextual ambidexterity and ES ambidextrous use. Furthermore, the cross-level mediation and moderation effects were explored. The case study, involving nine members in three groups from a manufacturing firm, served to reinforce the validity of the survey results.

Team-level contextual ambidexterity can affect ES ambidextrous use directly or through the partial mediator of user empowerment. Furthermore, this study highlights the moderating role of LMX in the relationship between contextual ambidexterity and user empowerment, thereby improving ES ambidextrous use.

This study contributes to the literature by uncovering the cross-level effect of contextual ambidexterity on ES ambidextrous use through user empowerment, thereby extending the ambidexterity perspective and self-determination theory to the ES context. Additionally, this study provides nuanced insights into how to enhance ES ambidextrous use by revealing the moderating role and moderated mediation effect of LMX anchoring on social exchange theory.