Pryor Christopher, Santos Susana C, Xie Jiangpei
Warrington College of Business, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
College of Business, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, United States.
Front Psychol. 2021 Apr 15;12:621688. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.621688. eCollection 2021.
Ambidextrous firms are those that can simultaneously manage exploitative and explorative innovation, which is why ambidexterity is key for firms that desire to pursue strategic entrepreneurship. Researchers have explored many of the reasons why some firms are more ambidextrous than others. However, little attention has been devoted to understanding how attributes of top decision makers can influence their firms' ambidexterity. By drawing on upper echelons theory and goal orientations research, we explain how firms' ambidexterity can be affected by top decision makers' motivations in achievement situations (i.e., goal orientations). Testing our hypotheses on a sample of 274 top decision makers of firms in the United States, we find that top decision makers' learning goal orientation - their desire to take risks and maximize learning-has an inverted U-shaped relationship with ambidexterity while top decision makers' performance prove goal orientation - their desire to demonstrate competence with existing skills - has a U-shaped relationship with ambidexterity. These effects are weaker for top decision makers who have greater role experience.
具有双重能力的公司是那些能够同时管理开发性创新和探索性创新的公司，这就是为什么双重能力对于渴望追求战略创业的公司至关重要。研究人员已经探讨了一些公司比其他公司更具双重能力的诸多原因。然而，对于理解高层决策者的特质如何影响其公司的双重能力，却很少有人关注。通过借鉴高层梯队理论和目标导向研究，我们解释了公司的双重能力如何受到高层决策者在成就情境中的动机（即目标导向）的影响。对美国274家公司的高层决策者样本进行假设检验时，我们发现高层决策者的学习目标导向——他们承担风险和最大化学习的愿望——与双重能力呈倒U形关系，而高层决策者的绩效证明目标导向——他们展示现有技能能力的愿望——与双重能力呈U形关系。对于具有更多角色经验的高层决策者来说，这些影响较弱。
