Performance Gap and Innovation Ambidexterity: A Moderated Mediation Model

Innovation ambidexterity has become a crucial strategic action for creating sustainable competitive advantages. This research provides novel insights by establishing a connection between performance gaps and innovation ambidexterity. We employ the organization’s resource acquisition and management perspective to construct and empirically assess a moderated mediation model that sheds light on the underlying process—through the dual-mediating path of network broadening (NB) and network deepening (ND) and the moderating role of resource orchestration capabilities. Using subjective surveys and objective-matched data from 362 Chinese listed firms, we confirm the positive-performance-gap-combined innovation ambidexterity relationship, and we find that NB and ND play a parallel mediating role between performance gap and balanced and combined innovation ambidexterity, with ND playing a stronger mediating role than NB. Furthermore, resource orchestration capabilities play a moderating role between NB and balanced and combined innovation ambidexterity, as well as between ND and balanced and combined innovation ambidexterity. These results contribute to the research on social network and ambidexterity literature and provide guidance on how to overcome firms’ performance dilemmas. However, our study has certain methodological limitations that constrain the implications of our results, offering intriguing opportunities for future research.