Science Research Management ›› 2022, Vol. 43 ›› Issue (7): 163-170.

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The effect of relationship network on organizational resilience: The mediating role of ambidextrous innovation

Zhang Mengtao, Zhang Shengtai   

  1. School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Beijing 100876, China
  • Received:2021-09-07 Revised:2022-01-10 Online:2022-07-20 Published:2022-07-19
  • Contact: ZHANG SHENGTAI

Abstract:    Under the "new normal" of future development with the characteristics of VUCA in the market, the frequent occurrence of "black Swan" and "gray rhino" events has changed the original business model and organizational type of enterprises. Whether enterprises can form resilience and grow against the trend under the impact of adverse events has become the key to their survival and turning crisis into opportunities. Despite the potential threats posed by adversity, highly capable teams and other relational systems embedded in organizations can generate positive outcomes and facilitate a return to (or improvement upon) the status quo.
    In view of the lack of attention paid to the formation mechanism of organizational resilience in current empirical studies, this paper explores the internal mechanism of relationship network and organizational resilience from both intra-organizational and inter-organizational perspectives. By the establishment of the structural equation model, this paper discusses whether and how relationship network affects organizational resilience. Specifically, we investigated the mediating role of dual innovation (exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation) in the relationship between relationship network and organizational resilience. Questionnaire surveys were conducted among companies in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei to serve as an empirical sample. SPSS and AMOS were conducted to test the hypotheses.
    The empirical analysis results show that intra-organizational and inter-organizational relationship networks are positively correlated with organizational resilience. Intra-organizational relationship network positively affects exploitative innovation and inter-organizational relationship network positively affects exploratory innovation. Exploitive innovation plays a partially mediating role between intra-organizational relationship network and organizational resilience. Exploratory innovation partially mediates the relationship between interorganizational network and organizational resilience. The results reveal the role of dual innovation (exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation) in the relationship network (intra-organizational relationship network and inter-organizational relationship network) on organizational resilience. Our research findings have not only made contributions to the studies on the relation among the relationship network, dual innovation, organizational resilience, but also have practical significance for business managers effectively improving organizational resilience.
   Our findings contribute to the practice of management in several ways. Firstly, managers should coordinate the relationship between network organization members, to create conditions for coordination and communication within the organization departments, to promote the sharing of information. In addition, managers should pay attention to the building of relationship network between organizations, actively mobilize non-market resources and win the support of stakeholders, in order to establish the channels to obtain heterogeneous resources organization members, the opportunity to contact new external knowledge. Secondly, managers can comprehensively consider and coordinate the key role of exploratory innovation and exploitative innovation in the development of enterprises. Managers should provide professional technology, equipment and other support for employees, and give appropriate external incentives to encourage employees to participate in exploitative innovation activities such as expanding existing markets, utilizing existing resources and improving existing technologies. In addition, while encouraging employees to carry out exploratory innovation activities, managers should give them sufficient support and enough psychological security, so as to create a good organizational innovation atmosphere for employees and alleviate their behavioral concerns caused by risk avoidance in exploratory innovation activities.

Key words:  relationship network, exploitative innovation, exploratory innovation, organizational resilience