Impact of ambidexterity and environmental dynamism on dynamic capability development trade-offs

Abstract

Based on the dynamic capabilities view, this study first examines whether the co-existence of explorative and exploitative capabilities can directly cause organizational tensions. In addition, this study employs the combination of these two capabilities to examine how organizational ambidexterity affects organizational tensions. The research subjects consisted of high-tech firms in Taiwan developing new, high-tech products, and a total of 154 valid questionnaires were returned from these. A hierarchical multiple regression model was used for hypotheses testing. Our findings show that explorative capability is not statistically significant, but that exploitative capability significantly and positively influences organizational tensions. This study provides support for the strong moderating effect of environmental dynamism on the relationship between organizational ambidexterity and organizational tensions.