Start Date
14-12-2012 12:00 AM
Description
The simultaneous pursuit of paradoxical strategies is an emergent means of attaining competitive advantage. By nature, exploration and exploitation are fundamentally different and contradictory, thus reflecting an instance of organizational ambidexterity. We assert that IT capabilities act through different mechanisms to influence ambidexterity. To test our model, we selected to gather data from 352 manufacturing firms in high growth sectors in India – a setting that provides an exemplar for the world’s enterprises undergoing rapid changes in the 21st century. Through OLS analysis we find strong support for our assertion that an organization’s IT capabilities individually and jointly influence organizational ambidexterity, hitherto a challenging competitive possibility. We are thus also able to account for previously unexplained variance in IT payoffs in the emerging economy and small and medium enterprise contexts. Overall, through this research, we validate the emergent role of IT capabilities in juggling paradoxical strategies in the 21st century.
Recommended Citation
Kathuria, Abhishek and Konsynski, Benn R., "Juggling Paradoxical Strategies: The Emergent Role of IT Capabilities" (2012). ICIS 2012 Proceedings. 10.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2012/proceedings/EBusinessStrategy/10
Juggling Paradoxical Strategies: The Emergent Role of IT Capabilities
The simultaneous pursuit of paradoxical strategies is an emergent means of attaining competitive advantage. By nature, exploration and exploitation are fundamentally different and contradictory, thus reflecting an instance of organizational ambidexterity. We assert that IT capabilities act through different mechanisms to influence ambidexterity. To test our model, we selected to gather data from 352 manufacturing firms in high growth sectors in India – a setting that provides an exemplar for the world’s enterprises undergoing rapid changes in the 21st century. Through OLS analysis we find strong support for our assertion that an organization’s IT capabilities individually and jointly influence organizational ambidexterity, hitherto a challenging competitive possibility. We are thus also able to account for previously unexplained variance in IT payoffs in the emerging economy and small and medium enterprise contexts. Overall, through this research, we validate the emergent role of IT capabilities in juggling paradoxical strategies in the 21st century.