「活用」と「探索」のトレードオフ関係の解消条件に関する考察 : 製薬産業を題材にした実証分析

抄録

Organizational learning scholars argue that there is a complementary relationship between exploitation and exploration. However, they have scarcely examined a mutually enabling relationship between exploitation and exploration in which exploitation enables subsequent exploration. I try to address this research gap by uncovering conditions under which exploitation enables subsequent exploration. Extending prior work on problemistic search, deliberate learning, and speciation, I argue that a negative association between organizations' exploitation orientation and subsequent exploration is moderated by their degree of aspiration discrepancy, deliberate efforts to articulate / codify learning, as well as replication of existing knowledge across distinct contexts. Accordingly, these organizations' degree of exploitation orientations more positively influences subsequent degree of exploration orientation, thereby resolving the trade-off relationship between exploitation and exploration. My empirical analysis of 46 pharmaceutical firms' new product developments during 1991-2000 supports my hypotheses. I also discuss my findings' implications to research on antecedents of organizational ambidexterity, as well as on temporal transitions across alternative organizational learning modes. Organizations may be able to balance exploitation and exploration by employing problemistic search, deliberate learning, and speciation. The path- dependent nature of organizational learning may be worth further examinations.