Abstract
With global competition and rapid technological advancements, Chinese enterprises are navigating a complex and challenging environment, prompting the need for innovation to ensure growth and survival. Ambidextrous innovation is the inevitable choice for enterprises under the impact of uncertainty. However, the balanced development of exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation faces challenges in practice. To thrive in fierce competition, on the one hand, enterprises must engage in exploitative innovation by improving existing technologies and products. On the other hand, enterprises must also promote exploratory innovation by exploring contemporary technologies and markets, so that enterprises can achieve the ambidextrous innovation. This study delves into the topic of ambidextrous innovation in Chinese enterprises amidst economic transformation.
Knowledge is a significant asset for enterprises innovation, and innovation is a process that involves the creation and utilization of knowledge. The transactive memory system of TMT, knowledge inertia, and ambidextrous innovation are all related to knowledge. This study integrates the transactive memory system of TMT, knowledge inertia, and ambidextrous innovation into a research framework. The transactive memory system of TMT refers to a knowledge-based collaborative division of labor among executive team members, impacting ambidextrous innovation in companies. Additionally, knowledge inertia, that is, the phenomenon that companies rely too much on existing knowledge resources and previous experience to solve various problems, will also affect the ambidextrous innovation of enterprise.
Firstly, this study reviews relevant domestic and foreign literature to identify and summarize the research problem. Secondly, based on previous studies, the theoretical research framework is refined to build a theoretical model of the relationship between the transactive memory system of TMT and ambidextrous innovation mediated by knowledge inertia. Then, based on the data survey of 108 Chinese enterprises and 1157 employees, this study uses SPSS and other software to empirically test the theoretical framework and hypotheses. Finally, the research findings are thoroughly analyzed and discussed to draw conclusive results. The study also provides managerial suggestions for optimizing the transactive memory system of TMT overcoming knowledge inertia, and thereby supplying guidance and support for Chinese enterprises to engage in ambidextrous innovation more effectively.
Through questionnaire survey and empirical analysis of Chinese enterprises, this study completed the mechanism improvement and empirical examination of the relationship between the transactive memory system of TMT and ambidextrous innovation with knowledge inertia as the mediating variable, including the moderating role of technology dynamics. The main conclusions and findings of this study include:
（1）The transactive memory system of TMT significantly affects exploitative and exploratory innovation differently. It has a significant positive impact on exploitative innovation and a significant negative impact on exploratory innovation. Similarly, knowledge inertia has a similar differential impact on exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation. this study further improves the research on the influence mechanism of ambidextrous innovation.
（2）Knowledge inertia plays a mediating role between the transactive memory system of TMT and the ambidextrous innovation. By dividing the ambidextrous innovation into exploitative innovation and exploratory innovation, knowledge inertia plays a mediating role in the transactive memory system of TMT and exploitative innovation, while it mediates the relationship between the transactive memory system of TMT and exploratory innovation. The results show that knowledge inertia plays a partial mediating role between the transactive memory system of TMT and ambidextrous innovation. This study constructs and improves the theoretical study of the relationship between the three.
（3）Technology turbulence moderates the relationship between knowledge inertia and ambidextrous innovation. This study takes technology turbulence as the moderating variable and empirical findings reveal that technological turbulence negatively moderates the relationship between knowledge inertia and exploitative innovation, while it partially positively moderates the relationship between knowledge inertia and exploratory innovation. This study further clarifies the ambiguities in the existing theoretical research and expands the application scenarios and conditions.
In summary, the differences between this study and previous studies are as follows: Based on the Chinese scenario, a theoretical integration framework within " the transactive memory system of TMT - knowledge inertia - ambidextrous innovation " is constructed, which complements the research on the differentiated impact of executive team interactive memory system on exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation, and verifies the mediating effect of knowledge inertia in the relationship between the transactive memory system of TMT and the ambidextrous innovation，and the moderating role played by the technology turbulence provides a more abundant theoretical and empirical reference for Chinese enterprises to upgrade the executive team interactive memory system, overcome knowledge inertia and promote the ambidextrous innovation.