联想集团“波形”轨迹下的组织演变——“试误式学习”惯例与组织可塑性的交互作用

组织演变过程的研究对于发展目前新兴的动态视角的组织理论具有重要推动作用。对联想集团成立迄今组织结构演变进程的纵贯考察与多时点归纳比较显示,组织演变未必是管理者精心设计的,也不一定呈现"间断式均衡"的轨迹;以"波形"轨迹展开的组织渐进性变化过程,具有等后效性;渐变的驱动力量可以来自面对问题实践探索和总结完善中产生的应变。在具有较强可塑性的企业中,组织体会在试误式学习惯例的驱动下产生一种内生力量,摆脱前期路径的锁定,并展现"波浪式前进"的演进路线。对应的,高层管理者的作用需要从"有形之手"转变为角色隐蔽的"变形之手"。本文在归纳分析中提出了一个用以解释组织渐变中路径创造得以发生的理论模型。     

我国企业创新模式的选择——基于公司治理的视角

本文将企业创新模式分为探索式创新和利用式创新,通过风险偏好与创新模式选择的研究,探讨了公司治理结构与创新模式选择的关系。得到的结果是：国有企业相比非国有企业,更倾向于选择风险小,见效快的利用式创新模式;大股东持股比例与探索式创新模式选择显著负相关,这与发达国家的情形正好相反;高管持股的股权激励机制可以在一定程度上激励企业进行探索式创新,但需要一个持股临界值。这些结果反映出非国有控股和高管持股的企业更有动机进行探索式创新,政府政策应为其搭建出必要的制度基础。     

从经验中学习

无论是“找同行”网站，还是五五私人董事会，都在为中国的企业人士探索一种从经验中学习的实用的路径。这些尝试越来越贴近明茨伯格的观点：“课堂上制造不出管理者，而已经是管理者的人回到课堂，却可以得到进一步的提高。他们丰富的经历可以把课堂变成活跃的学习场所。”     

战略规划反思——陷阱和谬误(上)

规划者通常指责所谓的“战略规划”存在的问题就是一系列“陷阱”——缺乏高级管理层的支持以及组织氛围与规划不相容。但也许正是规划阻碍了规划者需要的支持，而且规划本身也可能营造了一种与有效战略制定不相容的氛围。因此，真正的问题也许并不在于这些陷阱，而在于一系列更深层的“谬误”，最突出的是以下三方面：预测非连续事件的能力；战略家能够脱离战略制定的主题；战略制定过程能够正规化。这篇文章分为两个部分，本篇是第一部分，主要结论是：“战略规划”是一种矛盾的说法。     

“专精特新”企业发展的独特路径

作为产业链补链强链的重要贡献者,中国“专精特新”企业发展的独特路径引起了理论与实践的广泛关注。以“专精特新”企业发展的动态演化路径为研究问题,整合已有研究成果,在T型原理的基础上,采用多案例研究方法,以四家“专精特新”企业为研究对象,提出了中国“专精特新”企业发展的Y型模式。Y型模式认为“专精特新”企业发展是以双元学习/创新驱动企业技术精一化与市场场景多元化二者协同发展为主线,从“点”到“I”再到“Y”动态演化的路径过程。这一研究为“专精特新”企业发展研究奠定了更为整体、动态的理论底层逻辑,也为中国“专精特新”企业可持续发展提供了决策参考。     

“出海”实践论

中国互联网企业全球化,先要成为全球企业,然后成为全球领先企业。 本文只是想分享一些UC“出海”的实践总结,谈谈互联网企业全球化的路径和节奏。2009年底,UC在启动国际化时曾定下了三条战略：在路径上。从“东”到“西”,先布局新兴市场,再进军发达国家;在产品策略上,不搞平行推进,而是纵向发展,重点突破;在节奏上,先空军,后陆军,最后辅以海军。     

产品创新对生产率的效应分析——以知识型企业为例

在复杂多变的环境下,知识型企业的产品创新影响企业生产率的提高,因此两者之间的效应分析是重要的研究课题。结论证实产品创新与生产率之间呈现出U型非线性关系,其中产品创新主要分为探索式创新和开发式创新两种形式。研究表明,在一个产品创新周期的初始阶段,创新活动以探索式为主,由于新知识领域中的组织学习成本等问题,生产率会下降,探索式创新与生产率之间表现为负效应关系;随着企业效益的增加和新知识的巩固,创新活动以开发式为主,在吸收能力的作用下,开发式创新行为会促进生产率的进一步发展,二者表现为正效应关系。     

学习导向对组织绩效的影响——以利用式创新为中介

学习导向是影响组织绩效的重要因素， 本文通过以 395 份有效问卷， 探讨了学习导向3个维度对组织绩效的影响， 并进一步探讨了利用式创新的中介效应。 研究结果表明学习承诺、 共享愿景和开放心智均对组织绩效具有正向影响， 同时利用式创新在学习承诺与组织绩效之间、 开放心智与组织绩效之间起到了完全中介效应， 利用式创新在共享愿景与组织绩效之间起到了部分中介效应。     

基于逆全球化视角的科技制造企业智能化发展路径研究

受金融危机和大国博弈影响,全球化进入再全球化前回溯阶段,“逆全球化”趋势成为未来一段时期内主流方向。同时,受益于新一轮工业技术革命和数字经济发展,中国的科技制造企业智能化转型出现新的机遇和挑战。科技制造企业如何突破现有技术“、逆全球化”因素包围圈,成功实现智能化战略转型成为当下亟待解决的问题。本文就“逆全球化”下的中国科技制造企业现状进行调查分析,结合相关理论文献研究基础,探讨智能化流程再造发展路径中的机遇与挑战,提出相关发展建议。本文尝试探索中国科技制造企业智能化转型参考路径,为当前背景下科技制造企业寻求自我突破发展提供一定参考借鉴。     

苏州金龙:逆风飞扬 百亿启航

100亿 2014年,中国客车业过得比较艰难,企业发展呈现两极分化态势。但就在这种外部环境下,苏州金龙捷报频传,2015年传来的利好消息——苏州金龙销售收入突破百亿元大关!这是继宇通之后,第二个上百亿台阶的企业。这是一个完全靠内生式滚动发展起来的企业,这个百亿的含金量颇高!这是一个为中国客车企业争得美誉度的企业,代表中国客车的形象走进全球100多个国家,海外客户因为“海格”两个字而信任中国品牌!     

How to counteract the suppression of exploration in publicly traded corporations

Top management teams frequently overemphasize efforts to exploit the current product portfolio, even in the face of the strong need to step up exploration activities. This mismanagement of the balance between explorative R&D activities and exploitation of the current product portfolio can result in the so‐called success trap, the situation where explorative activities are fully suppressed. The success trap constitutes a serious threat to the long‐term viability of a firm. Recent studies of publicly traded corporations suggest that the suppression of exploration arises from the interplay among the executive team's myopic forces, the board of directors as gatekeeper of the capital market, and the exploitation–exploration investments and their outcomes. In this paper, system dynamics modeling serves to identify and test ways in which top management teams can counteract this suppression process. For instance, we find that when the executive board is suppressing exploration, the board of directors can still prevent the success trap by actively intervening in the exploitation–exploration strategy.     

Configurations of Innovations across Domains: An Organizational Ambidexterity View

How do firms balance explorative and exploitative innovation for superior firm performance? While most prior studies have approached this issue by focusing on technology‐related innovation, the role of balancing exploration and exploitation in other important organizational domains, i.e., marketing, and the interaction effect of ambidexterity across different domains have been overlooked. This study contributes to this line of research by investigating how firms simultaneously balance exploration and exploitation across two critical domains, namely technology innovation and market innovation. The study distinguishes four types of configurations: market leveraging (technology exploration and market exploitation), technology leveraging (technology exploitation and market exploration), pure exploitation (technology exploitation and market exploitation), and pure exploration (technology exploration and market exploration). From an organizational ambidexterity perspective, the current work investigates whether and how these different combinations exert distinctive effects on firm performance. Specifically, the article posits that (a) technology exploration and market exploitation complement each other, and (b) technology exploitation and market exploration also complement each other, such that both market leveraging and technology leveraging strategies have positive effects on firm performance. The article also maintains that such positive relationships are fully mediated by differentiation and low cost advantages. Conversely, it is argued that (c) technology exploration and market exploration conflict with each other, and (d) so do technology exploitation and market exploitation, such that both pure exploration and pure exploitation have negative effects on firm performance. Hypotheses were tested using survey data collected from 292 manufacturing and service firms in China. The results supported most of the hypotheses, except that pure exploration demonstrated no significant relationship with firm performance.     

The Locus of Innovation: The Effect of a Separate Innovation Unit on Exploration,Exploitation, and Ambidexterity in Manufacturing and Service Firms

This paper investigates the effects of having a separate innovation unit on exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity in manufacturing and service firms according to traditional paradigms of the innovation management discipline that innovation units should be organized in a separate department. Many manufacturing firms have such a unit while few service firms do. This paper sets out to investigate the advantages of having such a unit for exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity, and whether there are differences between manufacturing and service firms that could help explain why such units are present or absent. The literature suggests that a separate innovation unit has a positive effect on exploration and ambidexterity in manufacturing firms. However, the effect on improving operational activities, that is, exploitation, is unclear. If exploration and exploitation are two ends of a continuum, as the literature suggests, more exploration comes at the cost of exploitation. On the other hand, others have suggested the possibility of an orthogonal relationship, where a separate unit can simultaneously enhance exploration and exploitation. In this paper, the Dutch Community Innovation Survey (CIS) is used to investigate these relationships for manufacturing and service firms, with a question added to the survey regarding the locus of innovation within each firm, that is, mostly within a dedicated innovation unit or dispersed throughout the firm. Our findings show that a separate innovation unit increases exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity in both manufacturing and service firms. It thereby provides support for the orthogonal view of ambidexterity. A separate unit enhances the ability to exploit and be ambidextrous equally in service and manufacturing firms, but has a weaker positive effect on exploration, and exploratory and ambidextrous performance in service firms. This finding implies that both manufacturing and service firms benefit from having a separate innovation unit, with the advantages being greatest for manufacturing firms. In service firms, such an innovation unit alone may not be sufficient, as such units are expensive to maintain, while they contribute less to ambidextrous performance than in manufacturing firms. Based on the latter finding, future studies should make a distinction between the ability to be ambidextrous in creating exploratory and exploitative innovations, and ambidextrous performance, the ability to gain financially from engaging in both types of activities simultaneously.     

Networking as a Means to Strategy Change: The Case of Open Innovation in Mobile Telephony

The purpose of this article is to investigate how innovation networks can be used to deal with a changing technological environment. This study combines different concepts related to research and development (R&D) collaboration strategies of large firms and applies these concepts to R&D alliance projects undertaken by Nokia Corporation in the period 1985–2002. The research methodology is a combination of in‐depth semistructured interviews and a large‐scale quantitative analysis of alliance agreements. For the empirical analysis a distinction is made between exploration and exploitation in innovation networks in terms of three different measures. As a first measure, the difference between exploration and exploitation strategies by means of the observed capabilities of the partners of the contracting firms is investigated. The second measure is related to partner turnover. The present article argues that in exploration networks partner turnover will be higher than in exploitation networks. As a third measure, the type of alliance contract will be taken; exploration networks will make use of flexible legal organizational structures, whereas exploitation alliances are associated with legal structures that enable long‐term collaboration. The case of Nokia has illustrated the importance of strategic technology networks for strategic repositioning under conditions of change. Nokia followed an exploitation strategy in the development of the first two generations of mobile telephony and an exploration strategy in the development of technologies for the third generation. Such interfirm networks seem to offer flexibility, speed, innovation, and the ability to adjust smoothly to changing market conditions and new strategic opportunities. These two different strategies have led to distinctly different international innovation networks, have helped the company in becoming a world leader in the mobile phone industry, and have enabled it to sustain that position in a radically changed technological environment. This study also illustrates that Nokia effectively uses an open innovation strategy in the development of new products and services and in setting technology standards for current and future use of mobile communication applications. This article presents one of the first longitudinal studies, which describes the use of innovation networks as a means to adapt swiftly to changing market conditions and strategic change. This study contributes to the emerging, but still inconsistent, literature on explorative and exploitative learning by means of strategic technology networks.     

Product competence exploitation and exploration strategies: The impact on new product performance through quality and innovativeness

The ability to manage existing assets and capabilities (exploitation) and the development of new capabilities (exploration) are arguably among the most relevant new product success factors. However, while exploitation-related capabilities are based on certainties regarding the efficiency of a company, exploration-related capabilities require the analysis of new technologies and processes. In existing literature, there is a gap concerning the trade-off between the exploitation and exploration of competences. Based on the theoretical background of Resource Based Theory, Dynamic Capabilities Theory and Discovery and Creation Theory, a model is proposed to analyze this gap. In this study, which examines 197 manufacturing organizations, we build on the dualities of the two types of competences and their impact on speed-to-market and market performance. The findings indicate that the choice between exploitation and exploration depends on the goals of new product development. While exploitation increases product objective quality, exploration enhances product innovativeness to the firm. Furthermore, we found that both exploitation and exploration constitute important success factors when it comes to launching new products. Finally, moderate effects of competitive intensity and market turbulence are also examined. High levels of market turbulence improve the results of exploitation, while low levels of competitiveness may encourage exploration.     

Dynamic capability and IJV performance: The effect of exploitation and exploration capabilities

Drawing on the dynamic capabilities perspective as the overarching theoretical underpinning in the context of IJVs, this study investigates (1) how exploitation capability and exploration capability as two critical building blocks of dynamic capabilities are independently and interactively associated with IJVs’ financial and competitive outcomes in an emerging economy, and (2) how the two context variables (IJV autonomy and organizational culture distance of IJV partners) moderate the effect of exploitation capability and exploration capability on IJV performance. Using a sample of 102 IJVs in an emerging economy, this study finds general support for the theoretical model. Results suggest that IJVs in a foreign emerging economy tend to perform better when they possess greater abilities to exploit current resources as well as by dynamically renewing their competitive advantage. Moreover, exploitation capability and exploration capability interact in such a way that they “reinforce” each other. Lastly, the contribution of exploitation capability and exploration capability to IJV performance is stronger when IJVs enjoy greater autonomy and when the organizational culture distance between partners of IJVs is small. Theoretical and managerial contributions are discussed and limitations and future research are explored.     

Relational ties,innovation, and performance: A tale of two pathways

Relational ties are valuable resources that can generate substantial advantages for firms. Multiple studies show that relational ties enhance firm performance, but whether and how innovation intervenes in this process is largely unknown. This study examines how relational ties affect firm performance via two types of innovation. Drawing on the relational ties literature and exploration/exploitation literature, we differentiate between two types of ties (business ties versus political ties) and investigate how innovation (exploration versus exploitation) mediates relational ties and firm performance in two distinct ways. Survey data from China's semiconductor and pharmaceutical industries, both innovation-oriented industries, suggests that firms' business ties with buyers, suppliers, and competitors are more related to exploratory innovation, while their political ties with government officials are more related to exploitative innovation. Interestingly, competitive intensity demonstrates distinct moderating effects on both of these pathways.     

The asymmetric moderating role of market orientation on the ambidexterity-firm performance relationship for prospectors and defenders

Drawing on the resource-based view of the firm and, in particular, the capabilities perspective of firm performance, the authors examine the relationship between ambidexterity and firm performance for two strategy typologies: prospectors and defenders. Ambidexterity, defined as the combination of two discrete capabilities (exploration and exploitation), should have a less negative effect on firm performance among prospectors that add exploitation to exploration than among defenders who add exploration to exploitation. Hence, this research predicts an asymmetric effect of ambidexterity on firm performance for prospectors and defenders. The authors further posit that a boundary-spanning culture, such as market orientation, can function as a metaculture by integrating the subunit cultures generated by exploration and exploitation. As a result, market orientation should mitigate the negative effect of ambidexterity on firm performance, albeit differently for prospectors and defenders, and thus point to an asymmetric moderating role of market orientation. The findings provide mixed results, which the authors discuss along with some theoretical and managerial implications.     

The perilous leap between exploration and exploitation

Research summary : R&D‐based exploration and exploitation are necessary in order for firms to have sustainable competitive advantage. Yet, transitioning between these orthogonal types of R&D is considered profound organizational change. Building on recent research showing that compact, significant changes in R&D expenditure is an antecedent to the transition between explorative and exploitative R&D, I show that this leap between exploration and exploitation is quite hazardous. The magnitude of changes in R&D expenditure, whether increases or decreases, is positively associated with organizational failure. Firms maintaining higher levels of absorptive capacity are more capable of surviving the leap from R&D‐based exploitation to exploration, and firms that do not use reductions in R&D expenditure to manipulate short‐term earnings performance are more likely to survive the leap from exploration to exploitation. Managerial summary : In order to survive and thrive, innovative companies must be able to exploit their existing competencies, and to explore for new ones once those current competencies decline in value. However, transiting from one form of innovation to the other is difficult because the skills required to explore are fundamentally opposed to those required to exploit. In this article, I describe how difficult this leap between exploration and exploitation can be. I show that the move between R&D‐based exploration and exploitation is related to organizational failure. In addition, firms that are superior learners are more likely to survive the leap from exploitation to exploration, and firms that are not cutting R&D expenditure to manipulate earnings are more likely to survive the leap from exploration to exploitation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Understanding the exploration–exploitation dilemma: An fMRI study of attention control and decision‐making performance

This paper studies the cognitive processes that enable decision makers to switch between exploitation and exploration. We use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in a sample of expert decision makers to make two main contributions. First, we identify and contrast the specific brain regions and cognitive processes associated with exploitation and exploration decisions. Exploitation activates regions associated with reward seeking, which track and evaluate the value of current choices, while exploration relies on regions associated with attentional control, tracking the value of alternative choices. Second, we propose and test the idea that stronger activation of the brain circuits related to attentional control allows individuals to achieve better decision‐making performance as a result. We discuss the implications of these results for strategic management research and practice. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd