Science Research Management ›› 2023, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (11): 74-84.DOI: 10.19571/j.cnki.1000-2995.2023.11.008

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Ambidextrous strategy, institutional supports and disruptive innovation of equipment manufacturing enterprises

Yang Jin1,2, Yang Min1   

  1. 1. School of Management, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi′an 710072, Shaanxi, China;  2. School of Public Policy and Administration, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi′an 710072, Shaanxi, China
  • Received:2022-04-13 Revised:2022-10-24 Online:2023-11-20 Published:2023-11-14

Abstract:    The equipment manufacturing industry, as a basic and strategic industry that provides technical equipment for national economic development and defense construction, is highly dependent on knowledge, technology as well as other innovative resources. In recent years, although Chinese equipment manufacturing industry has made remarkable achievements, for example, the total size of the world has ranked first and some technologies and product market share has jumped to the forefront of the world, it is still in the middle-low level of the global value chain comparing with the international major manufacturing powers. The bottlenecks of technology have seriously delayed the process of high-quality development of equipment manufacturing firms. Under the background of today′s VUCA, it is difficult to break through the dilemma of "technology dependence" and "low-end locking" by relying on traditional incremental innovation, disruptive innovation provides an opportunity for latecomer firms in emerging economies to rapidly catch up of the advanced firms in developed economies. Especially for Chinese equipment manufacturing firms, disruptive innovation could help to break through the "neck-jamming" dilemma, obtain competitive advantage and achieve high-quality development.Disruptive innovation has been highlighted in innovation management literature over the past two decades. Previous research has explored the influencing factors of disruptive innovation and provided valuable insights for guiding firms to better generate disruptive innovation, but such studies have presented inconsistent results. We focus on ambidextrous innovative strategies as internal environment and institutional support as external environment and explore the relationship among ambidextrous innovative strategies about technology and market, institutional support and disruptive innovation. Unlike previous research mostly focusing on the impact of a single factor on disruptive innovation and ignoring interaction among different influencing factors, this paper systematically investigated how different factors among technological ambidextrous strategy, marketing ambidextrous strategy and institutional support can be interacted to promote disruptive innovation in Chinese equipment manufacturing firms from a comprehensive perspective. Based on the ambidextrous theory and institutional theory, the authors explored the impact of technological ambidextrous strategies, marketing ambidextrous strategies and institutional support on the disruptive innovation of equipment manufacturing enterprises, and constructed a theoretical framework of the impact of six antecedents on the disruptive innovation,which includes technology exploration(TR) and technology exploitation(TI), market exploration(MR) and market exploitation(MI), formal institutional support(FS) and informal institutional support(IS). As an effective method to explore the "synergistic effect" and "interaction relationship", fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to explore the complex mechanism of multiple antecedents on the result from a configuration perspective, which is an effect tool to analyze the antecedents of disruptive innovation. Based on the analysis above, the study selected 188 Chinese equipment manufacturing enterprises as samples and used the fsQCA method to explore the conditions that promote disruptive innovation in equipment manufacturing enterprises and reveal the path to achieve disruptive innovation. It was found that: (1) disruptive innovation is a process in which internal and external factors are interacted, and a single factor does not constitute a necessary condition for equipment manufacturing enterprises to achieve disruptive innovation; (2) there are six antecedent configurations for equipment manufacturing enterprises to achieve disruptive innovation and four antecedent configurations for the not-achievement of disruptive innovation; (3) the ambidextrous strategic coupling of technology exploration and technology exploitation, market exploration and market exploitation can better promote the emergence of disruptive innovation; and (4) although institutional support is one of the key factors of disruptive innovation of equipment manufacturing enterprises, too much reliance on institutional support may also lead to innovation inertia and is harmful disruptive innovation. The main contribution of this study is in the following three aspects: First, it focused on the impact of technological ambidextrous strategies, marketing ambidextrous strategies and institutional support on disruptive innovation in equipment manufacturing firms, and expanded and enriched the research field of disruptive innovation. Secondly, the unique role of formal and informal institutional support in promoting disruptive innovation in equipment manufacturing enterprises was identified, and the role of institutional support on disruptive innovation in enterprises was clarified. Lastly, the introduction of the fsQCA method effectively identified the interaction between factors, which is consistent with the complex reality of disruptive innovation in equipment manufacturing enterprises and provided a better explanation for the internal mechanism of disruptive innovation. In a word, the research conclusion has not only expanded and enriched the research field of disruptive innovation theory but also provided a reference for equipment manufacturing enterprises to carry out disruptive innovation activities.

Key words: disruptive innovation, ambidextrous strategy, institutional support, fsQCA