Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the link between board of directors’ roles namely strategy, service and control roles and ambidextrous innovation. This study also aims to determine whether the independence and gender diversity of boards have mediating effects in this relationship. Design/methodology/approach On the basis of a quantitative approach, the authors conducted a survey on all Tunisian-listed firms. A partial least square method was used to analyze the quantitative data. The authors also conducted semi-structured interviews with a sample of boards’ members of the surveyed firms followed by a thematic analysis of the discourses to discuss the results. Findings Results revealed that ambidextrous innovation is negatively linked to board’s control role. The outcomes of this research show also that ambidextrous innovation is positively associated with board’s service role and that the gender diversity moderates positively this link. Findings do not indicate a significant relationship between board’s strategy role and ambidextrous innovation but show evidence that the relationship is negatively moderated by independent directors, while positively moderated by gender diversity. Originality/value This research sheds light on the effects of Boards’ roles on ambidextrous innovation and the moderating effect of board’s gender diversity and independence as well. This paper addresses the gap in the literature as this thematic has not been studied, offering key insights with regard to corporate governance of companies looking to achieve ambidextrous innovation.

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The main objective of this study consists of investigating the impact of innovation strategies on corporate financial and social performance. Our study is based on French listed firms (SBF 120) from 2015 to 2019. Two models are employed to test our hypotheses: in the first model we opt for linear regressions to investigate the relation between innovation strategies (process, product and open) on firm’s financial performance. In the second model, logit regression model is employed to explore the impact of innovation strategies on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Findings reveal that product and open innovation are valuable to firm’s performance measured by return on asset (ROA). Second, we find evidence that open and technological innovation (process and product) have a positive effect on CSR strategies.