Juggling Information Technology (IT) Exploration and Exploitation: A Proportional Balance View of IT Ambidexterity

Huigang Liang (), Nianxin Wang () and Yajiong Xue ()
Additional contact information
Huigang Liang: Department of Business Information and Technology, Fogelman College of Business and Economics, University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee 38152
Nianxin Wang: Department of Information Management, School of Economics and Management, Jiangsu University of Science and Technology, Zhenjiang 212000, China
Yajiong Xue: Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858

Information Systems Research, 2022, vol. 33, issue 4, 1386-1402

Abstract: The current information systems (IS) literature treats information technology (IT) ambidexterity as a single aggregated construct, assuming perfect balance or simultaneously strong IT exploration and exploitation. Taking a different perspective, we propose that IT ambidexterity can be achieved through a proportional balance between its two dimensions, and the optimal balance depends on the specific context. Based on matched-pair data from a field survey of business and IT executives, we find a three-way interaction among environmental dynamism, IT exploration, and IT exploitation such that IT ambidexterity matters only in dynamic environments. More important, through polynomial regression and response surface analysis, we find that the proportionally balanced, rather than the perfectly balanced, combinations of IT exploitation and exploration maximize organizational agility. We further demonstrate how the effect of proportional balance of IT ambidexterity varies in stable and dynamic environments. This study offers a novel understanding: IT exploration and IT exploitation do not need to be equally strong to improve agility, and their proportional balance associated with maximal agility varies across different levels of environmental dynamism. It improves the current knowledge of IT ambidexterity and makes a significant contribution to IS strategy research and practice.

Keywords: IT ambidexterity; exploration; exploitation; proportional balance; agility; environmental dynamism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/isre.2022.1105 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orisre:v:33:y:2022:i:4:p:1386-1402

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Information Systems Research from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().