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Management research has alluded to organizational and environmental conditions that drive firms' tendencies to explore versus exploit. We complement this research by developing theory on vicarious learning to explain how a firm adjusts its own exploration level based on the exploration levels of its alliance partners and competitors. Using panel data on 180 electronics firms publicly traded in the United States, we reveal an inverted U-shaped association between a firm's exploration tendency and the exploration levels of its partners and competitors. Convergence is explained by imitation and legitimation, while divergence is associated with risk perception and specialization in the knowledge domain. We further show how the convergence of the exploration tendency becomes stronger under firm-specific uncertainty but weaker when the exploration patterns exhibited by the firm's partners and competitors are incoherent. Finally, counter to expectations, we show that this convergence is weakened by the technological proximity of the firm's competitors. Our findings inform research on vicarious learning and the antecedents of exploration by underscoring the role of interdependence in firms' exploration tendencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the relationship between firm performance and patterns of exploration and exploitation dynamics under conditions of environmental turbulence. Adopting a contingency perspective, we develop arguments on how environmental turbulence moderates the effects of the simultaneous or sequential engagement in exploration and exploitation. Based on a longitudinal sample of 140 pharmaceutical firms, we find that the effectiveness of sequential or flexible simultaneous engagement in ambidexterity varies depending on the environmental contingency, namely level of technological change, that a company faces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6486.2008.00801.x Byline: Wim Vanhaverbeke (1), Victor Gilsing (2), Bonnie Beerkens (3), Geert Duysters (4) Abstract: abstract This paper studies the effect of a focal firm, and its partners' local alliance actions, on the creation of technological innovations by the former. More specifically, we study how two types of redundancy in a focal firm's ego network affect its ability to create new technologies in its technology core areas (exploitation) and/or non-core areas (exploration). We analyse this empirically in three different industry settings: chemicals, motor vehicles, and pharmaceuticals. One of our key findings is that individual firms can indeed boost both types of innovative output by shaping the degree of redundancy in their local alliance network, but that the way in which this should be done differs between the creation of core and non-core technologies. Next, we find that it is very useful to unpack the rather abstract notion of redundancy into more specific types of redundancy in ego networks. Overall, these findings reflect an action-oriented view on the role of individual firms in collaborative networks, which may complement the dominant view in the alliance literature emphasizing the role of the overall network structure and firms' network position within it. Author Affiliation: (1)Hasselt University, Belgium; (2)Tilburg University, The Netherlands; (3)Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands; (4)UNU-Merit, The Netherlands Article note: Wim Vanhaverbeke, Department of Business Studies, Hasselt University, Agoralaan, Building D, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium (wim.vanhaverbeke@uhasselt.be).