Explaining the Role of Organizational Ambidexterity in The Impact of Pro-innovation Culture and Organizational Memory on New Product Development Performance

Today, offering the best new product development performance has become the most important concern of the managers of the knowledge-based companies and they are trying to achieve superior performance by using different techniques. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of organizational memory on new product development performance in knowledge-based companies: by explaining the role of organizational ambidexterity, technological turbulence and organizational Innovation.
Introduction Today, the life of the product market is declining and anticipated that will double the rate of product development in every five years (Wu et al, 2017; Awwad & Akroush, 2011). New product development is a strategic and key activity for many companies through which new products will have a significant share in sales and profits (Khasmafkan Nezam et al, 2014). As a result, new products that fix the needs and demands of customers are the key factor in maintaining and improving the competitive advantage (Manian et al, 2011). It is anticipated that innovation gains more importance in achieving competitive advantage and its maintenance as the organization environment becomes more complex and dynamic (Nasre Esfahani et al, 2013). On the other hand, today, the rapid fluctuations in science and technology and the economic turmoil caused by the lack of capital in product innovation have always been a problem, especially in developing countries (Mahmoudzadeh et al, 2015), And has persuaded the organizations to direct their objectives and tendencies towards organizational ambidexterity and innovation (Mortazavi et al, 2015; Booshehri, 2016). Considering the importance of knowledge-based companies in scientific and technological progress, and the complexities and changing conditions governing their business environment in the country, and given the success in offering new products, one of the most challenging management topics specially in knowledge-based companies, The present study aims at showing the impact of innovative culture and organizational memory on new product development performance with explaining the mediating role of organizational ambidexterity in knowledge-based companies and seeks to answer the question of how innovative culture and organizational memory improves achieving exploration and exploitation? And finally, how does organizational ambidexterity affect the new product development performance?
Case study Research population includes Knowledge-based Firms located in the science and technology Park of Tehran University. 155 companies are located in this Park, among these parks, 90 companies are development, 40 companies are growth and 25 are technology core companies.
Materials and Methods In the present study, a researcher-made questionnaire which estimates the effect of innovative culture and organizational memory on the new product development performance was used and includes 25 questions. For validity purpose, face validity and for reliability purpose Cronbach's alpha coefficient were used. For ambidexterity and organizational memory scales, Lee et al. (2017) measurement and Dunham and Burt (2014) and Harvey (2012) with 4 questions were used. In this study, the definition of innovative culture by Lee et al. (2016) with 5 questions was used. Also, the scale of new product development performance by Chen et al. (2015) and Parker and Brey (2015) with 4 questions was used as the basis of the questionnaire. Structural equation modeling and LISREL software were used to test the hypothesis.
Discussion and Results Findings show that the conceptual model has overall validity and all key paths in the model are statistically significant. The results indicate that while innovative culture and organizational memory can lead to higher new product development performance, organizational ambidexterity caused by innovative culture plays the mediating role. Findings show that innovative culture and organizational memory have a positive effect of exploration and exploitation; the results also show that innovative culture and organizational memory have a positive effect on ambidexterity. The results show that organizational ambidexterity (exploration and exploitation) has a positive impact on the new product development performance. The obtained results from the analyses showed that the effect of the increase in exploitation and exploration in the new product development performance is dependent on amount and direction of imbalance and can contribute to matching the ambidexterity mixed and balanced views. The results indicate that organizational memory improves organizational ambidexterity and in addition to having a direct effect on new product development performance, it indirectly affects it.
Conclusion Findings showed pro-innovation culture and organizational memory have directly and indirectly (through organizational ambidexterity) effect on the new product development performance. The results also showed that pro-innovation culture and organizational memory through exploration and exploitation will help to better utilizing organizational memory to increase the new product development performance in Knowledge-based Firms.