Abstract:

he psychological underpinning of individual ambidexterity remains a critical open question for academics. As the cognitive foundation of contextual ambidexterity in organization, individual ambidexterity serves as a "bottom-up" convergent function to build up the ambidextrous innovative capability of the organization. It relies on an individual′s capability of thinking transference between exploration and exploitation, in contrast with the traditional view of structural isolation, which has thereby received great attention among international scholars. In today′s worldwide entrepreneurship and innovation age, the ability of innovative employees to simultaneously explore new opportunities and exploit existing competencies has become crucial for business sustainability. Research has shown that current employees imperatively need job diversification and initiatives to improve their work performance in ever-changing environment. Although scholars start to recognize the fundamental position of individual ambidexterity in constructing contextual ambidexterity, they only have a fragmented understanding about the cognitive underpinnings of individual ambidexterity. Most existing literatures suggest that cognitive features like cognitive flexibility, risk tolerance and intrinsic motivation are positive antecedents of ambidextrous behaviors, but so far their conclusions are still quite abstract and narrow. Recently a new concept named "ambidextrous mental model" is developed, which is a higher-order conception constructed by three dimensions: self-efficacy, belief in reciprocity and innovative thinking. This conception contributes to a more systematic way to define cognitive level ambidexterity. However, the predictive validity of this construct and the context which defines its functional boundary have not yet been examined. In this regard, based on the “P—E—B” reciprocal model of social cognitive theory, our study is aimed at testifying the relationship between employees′ ambidextrous mental model as a higher-order construct and their ambidextrous innovation behaviors under particular network conditions. First we theoretically discuss about how an ambidextrous mental model encourages employee′s ambidextrous behaviors, and the moderating effect of employee′s network knowledge heterogeneity on the above relationship. Then we testify the higher-order construct of ambidextrous mental model, its effect on ambidextrous innovative behaviors as well as the moderator effect of network knowledge heterogeneity through empirical studies.Structural equation modeling and hierarchical approach are employed to analyze data from 463 R&D employees in 71 med-high-tech firms. The sample firms belong to technology-intensive industries in China, such as Biotech and Pharmaceutical industry, Mechanical industry, and Information Technology industry. We collected our data mainly in hi-tech industry development zones in China. All the valid questionnaires were collected from R&D employees who were engaged in both explorative and exploitative innovations in the corresponding companies. The respondents were told about the procedures of the survey, and anonymity and confidentiality were assured. We also testified the reliability of our measurement scales before we conducted confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis.The results can be divided into three parts. First of all, a hierarchical analysis shows that the higher-order structural model with self-efficacy, belief in reciprocity and innovative thinking being its first-order variables has better fit indices than any other competing models, which indicates a good construct validity of ambidextrous mental model. Second, path analysis with AMOS software shows that there is a positive relationship between ambidextrous mental model and ambidextrous innovation behaviors. Meanwhile regression analysis with SPSS software shows that employee′s network knowledge heterogeneity moderates the relationship between ambidextrous mental model and explorative innovation in a positive way, and exploitative innovation in a negative way. These results suggest that ambidextrous mental model is the cognitive underpinning of individual innovation ambidexterity, and a moderate network knowledge heterogeneity will be ideal for maximizing the strength of this relationship. Third, a robust test which contains a competing model for comparison was conducted to reconfirm our results. In our competing model, each dimension (e.g. self-efficacy, etc) of ambidextrous mental model is linked directly to ambidextrous innovation behaviors as a single variable rather than a first-order factor. The result shows that their independent effects are much less significant than the joint one. Hence, the robust test verifies the higher-order construct value of ambidextrous mental model in predicting ambidextrous innovation behaviors.This paper has two theoretical contributions. First, we verify the important theoretical value of ambidextrous mental model as a higher-order construct and the social cognitive underpinning of individual ambidexterity. It specifies and systemizes the viewpoints of the previous studies on cognitive ambidexterity. The results imply that self-efficacy, belief in reciprocity and innovative thinking function differently on R&D employees′ explorative and exploitative behaviors, and there are interactive effects between them. Second, we confirm the paradoxical perspective of ambidexterity theory by presenting, discussing and examining a group of closely interrelated cognitive concepts, i.e. self-efficacy, belief in reciprocity and innovative thinking, which jointly constitute a higher-order construct called ambidextrous mental model. The intrinsic functional logic of these cognitive variables implies how ambidextrous mental model encourages ambidextrous innovative behaviors. This paper also has three management implications. First, innovative firms should establish a belief system that accepts the universal paradoxes existing in organizations and emphasizes ambidextrous thinking. Managers need to pay more attention to employees′ ambidextrous mental model and set up moderate employees′ social networks in order to promote balanced innovative behaviors. Second, an ambidextrous HRM system should be built to motivate employees′ ambidextrous cognitive potentialities. It might include setting up selection criteria based on mental model, mental model training programs, ambidextrous performance appraisal system and changing job design, etc. Last but not least, firms may need to consider fostering a supportive rather than bureaucratic organizational culture to encourage a shared ambidextrous mental model among employees so that the continuous organizational innovative performance can be achieved.

Key words: ambidextrous mental model, explorative innovation, exploitative innovation, network knowledge heterogeneity, higher-order factor model