Exploitative dominant balanced ambidexterity solving the paradox of innovation strategies in SMEs

Abstract

Ambidexterity, referred as the adoption of both exploitation and exploration strategies, has received momentum in organisation research and particularly in innovation management on SMEs. Despite the intuitive appeal of ambidexterity, the ambidexterity-performance relationship is not straightforward, particularly for SMEs whose resource constraints make the successful implementation of an ambidextrous posture cumbersome. Secondly, there is conceptual ambiguity on the concept of the balance dimension of ambidexterity. Based on a hierarchical oriented view to dynamic capabilities, strategic flexibility and ambidexterity are found contingent with SMEs performance in a dynamic business environment. This study applied a mixed method of research on a sample of Iranian SMEs. The result shows that the exploitative dominant balanced ambidexterity enhances the effectiveness of implementing flexible strategies in SMEs.

Driving forces behind service innovation in knowledge-intensive services with different knowledge bases

“…Mature firms can be more structured and divided into several departments, affecting their innovation activity. Large firms are considered dependent on R&D in their innovative activity (Ahmadi and Osman, 2020) and are more likely to introduce process innovation than smaller ones (Radicic, 2020). There is no agreement in research results about a universal connection of a firm's size, level of maturity and innovation results (Doloreux et al, 2019;Storey et al, 2016;Chichkanov et al, 2021).…”

“…Despite the fact that the topic of innovation is one of the most studied in KIS, researchers note that all parameters of successful service innovation in KIS deserve further study (Toivonen and Tuominen, 2009;Storey and Hull, 2010;Pina and Tether, 2016;Ahmadi and Osman, 2020). In the literature review study, Modi and Rawani (2020) noted the need of empirical testing of the impact of the drivers, distinguishing internal and external, studied in literature, on innovation practices of the firm.…”