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Digital start-ups have limited resources. With the demands of rapid growth, digital start-ups need to rely on their ability to explore external knowledge and exploit it into swift innovation. Developing absorptive capacity is an alternative to overcome this difficulty. This study aims to demonstrate how the potential and realized an increase in absorptive capacity enables organizations to innovate moderated by structural ambidexterity. Empirical evidence places more emphasis on the impact of absorptive capacity on innovation but still leaves the “black-box” question of innovation and how potential absorptive capacity (PACAP) can achieve realized absorptive capacity (RACAP).

This study tests, with a structural equation model, samples collected from 143 digital start-ups in Indonesia.

The finding of this study suggests that PACAP influences the ability to innovate only if RACAP mediates it and structural ambidexterity positively moderates the relationship between these two variables.

First, this study uses digital start-up organizations as respondents. Second, this study explores the role of the structural ambidexterity that moderates the relationship between PACAP and RACAP manifested in digital start-ups organizations that are identical to temporary companies with limited resources. Third, digital start-ups have a fast-growth life cycle, unlike regular companies. Finally, the validated scale is based on data collected entirely from digital start-ups located in Indonesia, which may limit the generalizability of the findings to other industry contexts.

Start-ups suffer from the ability to innovate that increases their propensity to fail. They overcome this failure by increasing the absorptive capacity of the founding team to improve their ability to innovate. Because of limited resources available at digital start-ups, the flexibility of their management style can overcome these barriers, allowing the pursuit of both knowledge exploration and exploitation in a balanced way.

Most of the studies explained that the ability to innovate comes from absorptive capacity. In fact, they do not explore PACAP and RACAP and their relationships. Moreover, the studies also indicated that the contextual ambidexterity moderated PACAP and RACAP. Meanwhile, digital start-ups in this study revealed that structural ambidexterity with two dimensions, i.e. shared value, and behavioral integration, enables and positively moderates the relationship between PACAP and RACAP.

Studies on sustainability in energy transition in the electricity sector require a new approach of modifying the indicators from the energy trilemma index. The cocreation variable was used as a mediator to promote collaborative engagement of all stakeholders in the electricity sector to achieve energy transition sustainably. This study aims to investigate the arguments presented above.

This study adopted a quantitative method that combined structural equation modeling and partial least squares analysis. ADANCO was used to analyze the data gathered from power system expert engineers through an online questionnaire survey.

Power system expert engineers play an important role in collaborative stakeholder engagement and cocreation as mediators for achieving sustainability. The expert engineers were willing to collaborate with stakeholders, while ensuring an engaging learning experience. Notably, dialogue that provides mutual access and transparency in assuming risk strengthened the cocreation effect.

The mediating effect of cocreation becomes important when there are antecedents related to stakeholder collaboration. Studies that used data from expert engineers having more than ten years of experience used cocreation as an antecedent, either independently, through mediation or by depending on the sustainability goals.

This study has implications on the power sector in Indonesia, which relies on coal-fired power plants. This study proposes empowering expert engineers to collaborate with stakeholders to achieve energy decarbonization.

Aspects of the energy trilemma index were used to investigate the expert engineers’ perspective regarding energy security, energy equity and environmental sustainability, parameters which were modified to reflect their behavioral tendencies to achieve sustainability in the electricity sector.