Organizations face a common intertemporal choice problem, where actions suitable in the shortterm are different from those that work in the longterm. Building on the organizational ambidexterity theory, we argue that organizations can reconcile their short‐term and long‐term tensions, but this does necessitate managerial endeavours that orchestrate this reconciliation. We introduce the concept of temporal ambidexterity and define four intertemporal tensions involving an organization’s objectives, resources, markets, and uncertainty. We examine how firms can address these tensions successfully in the context of new ventures, and to do so we focus on three managerial capabilities of founder‐CEOs: expertise breadth, external connectivity, and empowering leadership. Results from 243 new ventures in China suggest that temporal ambidexterity improves with these managerial capabilities, and more so for younger ventures. Our findings shed light on solutions and mechanisms by which intertemporal balance is fulfilled, particularly for new ventures in a dynamic environment.

Research Summary In underdeveloped countries like those in Sub‐Saharan Africa, firms suffer from human capital voids (i.e., a prevalence of very low levels of skills among individuals). These human capital voids have a negative effect on performance improvement. However, managers can solve this negative effect by choosing organizational upgrading mechanisms that are contextually appropriate. In particular, operating joint ventures with foreign partners compensate for this negative effect, whereas internal research and development (R&D) amplifies this negative effect. Managers should also monitor and push for the reduction of country‐level human capital voids because the influences of organizational upgrading mechanisms change. In countries with more developed human capital, joint ventures have a weaker compensating effect, and R&D investments cease to amplify the negative effect. Managerial summary We analyze how firms in underdeveloped countries overcome human capital voids—a prevalence of very low levels of skills among individuals—to improve performance. Building on the knowledge‐based view, we argue that managers can strategically select organizational upgrading mechanisms to compensate for the negative effect of the human capital deficiencies of employees on firm performance improvement. We propose that external mechanisms (e.g., operating a joint venture with foreign partners) are better than internal mechanisms (e.g., internal research and development) because external mechanisms provide appropriate ready‐made knowledge for learning of low‐skilled labor, whereas internal mechanisms create additional learning inefficiencies. However, these influences change in countries with more developed human capital: external mechanisms have a lower compensating influence, whereas internal mechanisms become less inefficient. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Nanofibrils play a pivotal role in spider silk and are responsible for many of the impressive properties of this unique natural material. However, little is known about the internal structure of these protein fibrils. We carry out polarized Raman and polarized Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopies on native spider silk nanofibrils and determine the concentrations of six distinct protein secondary structures, including β-sheets, and two types of helical structures, for which we also determine orientation distributions. Our advancements in peak assignments are in full agreement with the published silk vibrational spectroscopy literature. We further corroborate our findings with X-ray diffraction and magic-angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance experiments. Based on the latter and on polypeptide Raman spectra, we assess the role of key amino acids in different secondary structures. For the recluse spider we develop a highly detailed structural model, featuring seven levels of structural hierarchy. The approaches we develop are directly applicable to other proteinaceous materials.

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