Ambidextrous Knowledge and Learning Capability: The Magic Potion for Employee Creativity and Sustainable Innovation Performance

Lucía Muñoz-Pascual and Jesús Galende
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Lucía Muñoz-Pascual: Department of Business Administration and Management, Multidisciplinary Institute for Enterprise (IME), University of Salamanca, Campus “Miguel de Unamuno”, Building FES, 37007 Salamanca, Spain
Jesús Galende: Department of Business Administration and Management, Multidisciplinary Institute for Enterprise (IME), University of Salamanca, Campus “Miguel de Unamuno”, Building FES, 37007 Salamanca, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 10, 1-27

Abstract: This paper studies the effect that ambidextrous knowledge, i.e., oriented knowledge within a firm towards the development of exploitation activities and oriented knowledge towards the development of exploration activities, has on employee creativity, research and development, and sustainable product innovation. We contend that both tacit and explicit knowledge affect employee creativity, research and development, and sustainable product innovation. We empirically tested our hypotheses by using multisource data collected from 245 Spanish firms across fourteen industries. Our structural equation models indicate that these two types of individual knowledge predict employee creativity, which in turn strengthens research and development projects, and sustainable product innovation performance. The results confirm that the relationships between knowledge, creativity, research and development, and sustainable product innovation performance are strong with a high learning capability. A multi-group structural analysis also reveals that positive relations between tacit and explicit knowledge, employee creativity, research and development, and sustainable product innovation performance are stronger within firms that have employees with high learning capability. We provide pertinent recommendations for managers. The efforts and investments made in knowledge support the development of new ideas, new research and development projects, and sustainable product innovation success; employee learning capability has a strong influence on knowledge, creativity, and sustainable product innovation.

Keywords: sustainable product innovation performance; research and development; creativity; ambidextrous knowledge; tacit and explicit knowledge; learning capability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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