Knowledge inflows effects on middle managers’ ambidexterity and performance

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to report on lab experiments conducted to determine what impact managerial top-down knowledge transfer has on a middle manager’s individual ambidexterity and decision performance. Design/methodology/approach – The authors designed an experimental approach using a business simulator to test the hypotheses with middle managers. The methodological approach provides the authors with a framework to enhance the middle manager’s understanding of how to attain superior short-term financial results by exploiting current resources, in addition to mastering new strategies to avoid a potential business bankruptcy. Findings – The results suggest that top-down managerial knowledge inflow benefits middle manager strategic decision making, as well as his/her short- and long-term performance. Nonetheless, the best short-term results were achieved by those middle managers that mastered both exploitation and exploration activities simultaneously. Originality/value – The contribution of this paper is to identify and test a control mechanism called top-down inflows that enhance middle manager’s ability to exploit current resources to increase financial performance, and exploring new strategies to avoid a business bankruptcy.

Managers’ Open Innovation and Business Performance in SMEs: A Moderated Mediation Model of Job Crafting and Gender

“…Female employees are more involved in explorative and exploitative activities than males [22]. In contrast, [23] report contradicting results that vary across gender. Their results reveal that female employees are more involved in exploitative activities, while male employees are more involved in explorative activities.…”

“…Some studies [24,25] report that females are more likely to engage in job crafting, while others indicate that males are more involved in job crafting behavior [26]. Our study aims to investigate the ways in which managers tend to alter their tasks, consider who to interact with, and use cognitive abilities to establish new ways to complete tasks [16], which helps to enhance business performance [23]. Moreover, this study approaches the topic by observing how manager behaviors differ based on gender.…”

Untitled

“…Ante esta contingencia, la ambidestreza se considera como una alternativa viable ante las paradojas, tensiones y dilemas de la organización. Duncan (1976) introduce la idea de la organización ambidiestra en el sentido de equilibrio en "dualidades estructurales" para impulsar el desarrollo de la innovación (Torres et al, 2015). Así es como Tushman y O'Reilly (1996) definen ambidestreza como la capacidad de una organización para gestionar las mejoras incrementales y continuas, como los cambios evolutivos y cambios discontinuos radicales, así como los cambios revolucionarios al mismo tiempo.…”

“…En los últimos años, la literatura de la Administración Estratégica ha explorado la relación entre los individuos que componen una organización y su entorno, donde estos agentes están presionados a abordar estratégicamente de forma competitiva múltiples demandas de forma simultánea (Smith, 2014) con alternativas mutuamente excluyentes, que determinan el rendimiento de las decisiones (Torres et al, 2015). Por tanto, ante el objetivo de resolver la tensión de naturaleza incompatible entre actividades de explotación y exploración (March, 1991) y para dar respuesta a estas tensiones, Duncan (1976) propone el concepto de la organización ambidiestra, la que desde una perspectiva tradicional se refiere a la capacidad de una organización para enfrentar objetivos, estrategias, eventos, procesos, actividades dispares, de forma simultánea, como la eficiencia de fabricación versus flexibilidad (Adler et al, 1999), estrategias de diferenciación o de bajo costo (Porter, 1980), o la integración global y la capacidad de respuesta local (Bartlett y Ghoshal, 1989).…”

Market opportunity recognition in the Chilean wine industry: traditional versus relational marketing approaches

“…This is observed in contemporary research which has shown that most of our mental models are very often systematically different (Senge, 2006). Managers do not understand feedback relationships, delay effects, and often do not notice all information within their field of vision leading to appreciating different aspects of the reality (Torres, Drago, Aqueveque, 2015). Therefore, updating decision maker's mental representations in response to changes in external environments is a critical managerial capability (Hodgkinson & Healey, 2011).…”