Innovation ambidexterity and impact on the performance in IT companies: the moderating role of business experience

ABSTRACT

This study aims to examine the relation between innovation ambidexterity and organisational performance and the moderating effect of business experience on a sample of IT companies. Various authors pointed out the necessity to analyse not only explorative and exploitative innovation separately, but also their combined effects on organisational performance. These effects are assessed by using polynomial regressions in testing the research hypotheses. Business experience contributes to important differences in both the quantity and quality of resources available, which are critical for innovation. With only a handful of papers specifically addressing business experience in the context of innovation ambidexterity, this study fills a major research gap. The findings demonstrate the positive influence of innovation ambidexterity on organisational performance. In terms of business experience, the findings show that in new ventures it moderates the relation between innovation ambidexterity and organisational performance, while in established companies no relation was found. Business experience is rarely used to explain interactions between innovation and performance and, as such, we provide new insights on how both new ventures and established companies make use of business experience in their innovation approaches.

KEYWORDS:

• Innovation ambidexterity
• organisational performance
• business experience
• innovation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sebastian Ion Ceptureanu

Sebastian Ion Ceptureanu (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8849-7960) is Professor PhD of Management at Faculty of Management, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies. Knowledge Management constitutes his area of expertise and interest. Sebastian Ion authored or co-authored several papers in journals such as Annals of Operations Research, Soft Computing, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and Entropy.

Eduard Gabriel Ceptureanu

Eduard Gabriel Ceptureanu (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2328-4328) is Professor PhD of Management at the Faculty of Management, The Bucharest University of Economic Studies. Specialised in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Eduard Gabriel authored or co-authored so far several papers in journals such as Soft Computing, Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, Annals of Operations Research, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health and Entropy.

Roy Cerqueti

Roy Cerqueti (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1871-7371) is Professor PhD of Mathematics for Finance and Economics at Sapienza University of Rome. His area of expertise includes quantitative methods for finance, complex networks, optimisation and applied probability.

Roy authored or co-authored papers in journals such as Annals of Operations Research, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Banking and Finance, Optimisation Letters, Plos One, Environmental Impact Assessment Review, European Journal of Operational Research, Social Indicators Research, Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Energy Economics, Journal of Applied Statistics, Economic Modelling and Expert Systems with Applications.