 Ambidexterity, a driver to enhance small and medium enterprises' innovation autonomyCristina Iturrioz-Landart, Henar Alcalde-Heras and Cristina Aragón-Amonarriz International Journal of Business Environment, 2021, vol. 12, issue 2, 186-205 Abstract: SMEs suffer from structural limitations that constrain their ability to develop innovation capacities and these constraints may affect ambidextrous strategy implementations, particularly during economic recessions. To mitigate these weaknesses, SMEs often rely on inter-firm cooperation relationships to provide resources and external sources of knowledge relevant in both exploration and exploitation. The network and organisational performance effects of ambidexterity strategy have been widely studied, but scarce research has focused on the contribution that ambidexterity linked to inter-firm cooperation strategies have on SMEs innovation capabilities over time. This longitudinal study, based on a panel dataset about innovation behaviour on 2,150 SMEs located in Spain's Basque Country during recession periods (2009-2013), verifies how ambidexterity, together with external collaboration strategy, reinforces SMEs innovation autonomy. Keywords: ambidexterity; innovation; collaboration; capabilities; autonomy; innovation autonomy; small- and medium-sized firms; economic recession; exploitation; exploration. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijbenv:v:12:y:2021:i:2:p:186-205 Access Statistics for this article More articles in International Journal of Business Environment from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd |
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