Individual ambidexterity : a managerial perspective in relation to the dimensions of absorptive capacity

Abstract

In today's world, in order to maintain and sustain a competitive advantage requires the organisations and managers to align their current goals with that of the changing environment. This is understood to be the concept of ambidexterity. There is a substantial amount of research that has largely focused on understanding ambidexterity at the organisational level and business unit level, but perhaps organisational success may be reliant on both exploration and exploitation activities of managers, individual ambidexterity. This paper provides an analysis of the influential factors of individual absorptive capacity regarding manager exploration and exploitation activities. Hypotheses are developed to test the dimensions of individual-level absorptive capacity and its associations with managers exploration and exploitation activities. Using quantitative data from 108 questionnaires, a bivariate correlation and simple-linear regression analysis was used to examine the relationship. The empirical findings indicate that managers efforts to identify, assimilate and utilise knowledge from external sources are most likely to engage in explorative activities and are not likely to influence their exploitation activities. Understanding these factors may enable managers to be more balanced in their exploration and exploitation activities which could contribute to the competitive advantage of organisations.