competitive advantage

Journal of Innovation & Knowledge

Attaining competitive advantage is especially crucial for innovative firms. Due to increased competition, firms employ various types of innovation activities to position themselves against their competitors. Ambidexterity and strategic agility have been found to strengthen this position. Whereas scholars analyzed strategic agility’s and ambidexterity’s impact on organizational performance, ambidexterity’s impact on the competitive advantage of organizations remains largely unexplored. Tensions between exploration and exploitation within an ambidextrous strategy make it difficult to reap benefits in establishing competitive advantage. Contrary, strategic agility centers on organization’s capacities to quickly respond to shifting demand, hence, increasing its competitive advantage. Through a mixed-method approach, comprising of a literature review and quantitative analyses of 150 German mid-sized firms in the engineering industry, it is demonstrated how ambidexterity, exploration and exploitation, in conjunction with strategic agility, affect the competitive advantage of firms. In order to sustain, firms should either favor an exploration strategy of innovation processes to come up with radically new knowledge, products and services, or combine an exploitation strategy with strategic agility. A strategy of sole exploitation is not beneficial towards increased competitive advantage, while an ambidextrous strategy seems to even negatively influence the competitive advantage of a firm. Lograr una ventaja competitiva es crucial para las empresas innovadoras. Como consecuencia del aumento de la competencia, las empresas utilizan diversos tipos de actividades innovadoras para posicionarse frente a sus competidores. Se ha descubierto que la ambidestreza y la agilidad estratégica fortalecen esta posición. Diversos estudios han analizado el impacto de la agilidad estratégica y la ambidestreza en el desempeño organizacional. Sin embargo, el impacto de la ambidestreza en la ventaja competitiva de las organizaciones permanece ...

Organizational ambidexterity and competitive advantage: The role of strategic agility in the exploration-exploitation paradox