The moderating role of internal and external resources on the performance effect of multitasking: Evidence from the R&D performance of surgeons

Decoding Employee ambidexterity: Understanding drivers, constraints, and performance implications for thriving in the evolving work landscapes - A scoping review

Employee ambidexterity (EA) is becoming increasingly recognised as a significant factor in enhancing individual and organisational performance across diverse industries. Ambidexterity refers to the capacity to exploit and explore organisational resources simultaneously. Scholars from diverse industry sectors have been motivated to delve deeper into the topic of EA due to its growing popularity. The objective of conducting a scoping review was to scrutinise the existing literature and identify the key drivers and constraints that impact EA to thrive in the changing work landscape. The insights gained from this review can assist decision-makers in formulating effective strategies to cultivate the ambidexterity skills of their workforce and achieve desirable outcomes. This review adheres to the PRISMA-ScR protocol. Articles were obtained from databases including Scopus, Web of Science, and EBSCOhost (Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete). The body of literature concerning EA is in its nascent stage. 23 articles assessing EA's performance outcomes were identified using targeted search terms and thorough screening. After conducting a thorough thematic analysis using the iterative categorisation (IC) technique, tailored for scoping a review, we successfully identified twenty-nine factors contributing to the enhancement of EA, meticulously organised into five distinct categories: organisational factors, social connectedness, employee behaviour, employee personality, and work environment related factors. Similarly, we discovered four factors that impede EA: functional tenure, team identification, bounded discretion, and conscientiousness. Our findings underscore the profound impact of employee ambidexterity on distinct types of performance. Among the sixteen types of performance reported to be enhanced by EA, ten are linked to individual performance, while six are tied to organisational performance. Notably, our analysis revealed that nearly all studies have relied on cross-sectional research methods except for one. However, we advocate for the exploration of longitudinal studies as they hold the promise of offering a more comprehensive understanding of EA. The paper presents valuable insights into how to cultivate ambidextrous capabilities in the workforce for unparalleled success in today's rapidly evolving work environment. Additionally, it identifies several intriguing avenues for future research that could further elucidate and bridge existing knowledge gaps.

Employee involvement in innovation activities in hospitals: How perception matters

Employees are a very important source of innovation and essential for the generation, dissemination and implementation of these ideas throughout the organization. This is especially relevant when considering innovation in services during service (co-) creation such as within the healthcare sector. However, perceived employee involvement in innovation (EII) and between stakeholder group interactions in hospitals has not yet been studied in detail. This paper addresses the following research questions: "How do different employee groups perceive their involvement in the innovation process in hospitals and how do their actual involvement levels differ?" and (2) "How do different employee groups perceive their interaction with other employee groups in the innovation process and how do their actual interactions differ?" We analyzed a single typical German research hospital and conducted episodic interviews with employees representing different staff groups. We revealed that while all groups of employees are involved in innovation activities, perception of their involvement in innovation activities differs widely. There is a gap between perception and actual involvement particularly for lower level employees such as nurses. Further, their interaction differs among employee groups and innovation takes place in-group, rather than through group interaction. With our paper, we add to the understanding of perceived EII in hospitals and discuss measures for hospital management to increase EII.

Are R&D-Intensive firms also corporate social responsibility specialists? A multicountry study

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Firms with higher R&D intensity tend to be corporate social responsibility (CSR) specialists.

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High-discretion slack resources allow R&D-intensive firms to be more balanced in their CSR.

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The R&D intensity–CSR specialization relationship varies across industry characteristics.

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A natural experiment indicates that R&D intensity influences CSR specialization, rather than vice versa.

Seeking to obtain efficiency in the development and integration of knowledge about R&D and corporate social responsibility (CSR), firms face hard choices about their resource allocation to these two areas because of the specialized nature of knowledge and related barriers to integration. We address this organizational resource allocation dilemma by relaxing the common assumption that firms are either responsible or irresponsible and examining financial slack as a possible moderator. Using a multicountry sample of 1,957 firms over a 16-year timespan, we find strong empirical support for the positive association between firms' R&D intensity and CSR specialization, a novel concept that—distinct from CSR as such—gauges the extent to which firms specialize in specific environmental, social, or governance aspects of CSR. However, there is insufficient support for financial slack as a moderator in general (except for one noteworthy industry pattern and an alternative operationalization of slack). The exceptions suggest that the nature of organizational slack may influence the relationship between R&D and CSR specialization.

The role of individual ambidexterity for organizational performance: examining effects of ambidextrous knowledge seeking and offering

Empirical research has confirmed positive effects of organizational ambidexterity for companies’ long-term performance. More recent research has shifted the focus from organizational level exploration and exploitation to the individual in order to understand psychological micro-foundations of individual ambidexterity. However, our current knowledge on how knowledge flows within individual ambidexterity are initiated and affect performance outcomes is limited. This study thus strives to shed light on the topic by introducing two mechanisms, namely ambidextrous knowledge seeking and ambidextrous knowledge offering, that capture how knowledge flows within individual ambidexterity are initiated. Based on survey-data from 415 employees, findings from structural equation modeling provide first empirical evidence that the focal constructs significantly affect knowledge accumulation on the department level as well as its performance. Finally, results from additional moderation analysis indicate, that ambidextrous knowledge offering leads to higher performance effects in environments characterized by the pursuit of radical innovations, while ambidextrous knowledge seeking is rather suited for environments with a focus on innovating incrementally.

Managers’ regulatory focus, temporal focus and exploration–exploitation activities

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine and gain further insight into the potential link between regulatory focus and exploration–exploitation at the individual manager level. More specifically, the authors hypothesised that temporal focus would act as a mediator in the relationship between managers’ regulatory foci and exploration–exploitation activities.

Design/methodology/approach

A survey was conducted with 541 managers from the USA. The model was tested using OLS regression models, followed by bootstrapped multiple-mediation analyses.

Findings

Managers’ promotion and prevention foci are associated with the extent to which they focus on the past, the present and the future, which is related to managers’ exploration and exploitation activities.

Research limitations/implications

The findings rely on self-report data.

Practical implications

This paper examines the chronic strategic tendencies of managers with different levels of promotion and prevention focus – in particular, the timeframes they are likely to focus on and exploration–exploitation levels they are likely to engage in. In doing so, this paper provides managers a way to detect and overcome their chronic strategic shortcomings.

Originality/value

This paper not only examines the link between regulatory focus and exploration–exploitation at the individual level, but also provides further insights regarding the nature of this relationship. More specifically, by putting forward temporal focus as a mediator of this relationship, this study contributes to the ongoing discussion about the potential link between regulatory focus and exploration–exploitation, and poses new questions for future research.

Pathways for Balancing Exploration and Exploitation in Innovations: A Review and Expansion of Ambidexterity Theory

Organizational research describes the inherent tension between innovation, as a means to adapt to environmental change, and continuing to do what one does well and what current customers appreciate. Managing this tension successfully leads to so-called ambidexterity. How to achieve it is still a matter of debate: proponents of structural approaches recommend a separation of exploration and exploitation, while proponents of so-called contextual ambidexterity suggest that contextual factors such as culture and process are equal if not more critical in leading the organization to ambidexterity. Based on the findings of empirical ambidexterity research, many more factors are suggested, though they are rarely researched in an ambidexterity context nor are the interdependencies between the factors and the known ambidexterity strategies described. To guide future research, this paper develops an expanded and system-focused framework for achieving ambidexterity. It is used to review and integrate findings from organizational theory and neighboring disciplines, including project management theories, knowledge management theories, human resource management theories, and open and distributed innovation theories. Managerial implications are discussed and illustrated with a case example. The resulting work provides the basis for explicitly modeling the drivers and inhibitors of exploration and exploitation and their interdependencies. In future research, this can be used to better understand and overcome conflicting objectives, devise new approaches for achieving ambidexterity, and ultimately design more successful organizations.

How Project Management and Top Management Involvement Affect the Innovativeness of Professional Service Organizations—An Empirical Study on Hospitals

This study investigates how top management involvement and project management professionalization affect firm innovativeness. We focus on hospitals as representative of professional service organizations characterized by pluralistic individual and organizational interests. A multiyear analysis of project management survey and objective performance data of 90 hospitals indicates that top management involvement in innovation projects reduces hospital innovativeness, and project management professionalization increases hospital innovativeness. However, increasing project management professionalization simultaneously strengthens top management involvement’s effectiveness. The results contribute to our understanding of potential interactions and different effects of project management efforts at different organizational levels in professional service organizations.

Incentives and gender in a multi-task setting: An experimental study with real-effort tasks

This paper investigates the behavioural effects of competitive, social-value and social-image incentives on men's and women's allocation of effort in a multi-task environment. Specifically, using two real-effort laboratory tasks, we investigate how competitive prizes, social-value generation and public awards affect effort allocation decisions between the tasks. We find that all three types of incentives significantly focus effort allocation towards the task they are applied in, but the effect varies significantly between men and women. The highest effort distortion lies with competitive incentives, which is due to the effort allocation decision of men. Women exert similar amount of effort across the three incentive conditions, with slightly lower effort levels in the social-image incentivized tasks. Our results inform how and why genders differences may persist in competitive workplaces.

Going Beyond Ambidexterity in the Media Industry

As media companies continue to struggle on the ever-changing global and digital market, they often fail to be simultaneously innovative and entrepreneurial. As though intuitively knowing that they are still not on the right track, a growing number of media companies has been observed to approach eSports companies, intending to invest in innovative capabilities they lack themselves. The trend has reached its peak in 2015. Expanding the current research on ambidexterity with its either/or duality of exploration and exploitation, the authors propose a model of ultradexterity that goes beyond either/or and follows the logic of both/and. This conceptual paper is intended to characterize ultradexterity as a specific property of being both innovative and entrepreneurial at the same time. Based on ethnographical information and data on the eSports industry, the authors will carve out the ultradextrous working style of eSports companies that nourishes the expectation of media companies that incorporating such organizations will give them the opportunity to turn their lack of ambidexterity into ultradexterity.