Understanding The Impact Of Ambidexterity Innovation Strategy On The Interplay Between Formal And Informal Networks Of Organizations

The valuable effect of interplay of formal and informal networks has been proved while how to promote the formation of appropriate interplays was ignored.This paper addresses this gap by investigating how to adjust ambidexterity strategy and match internal culture and external environment to form the interplays.For this purpose,we surveyed 156 whole networks in enterprises and tested our model.As we hypothesized,ambidexterity strategy,exploitation and exploration innovation strategy all exert inverted U-shaped effects on the interplay of formal and formal networks,because exploitation/exploration innovation strategy is positively/negatively linked to the interplay between authority networks and friendship networks and exploitation/exploration innovation strategy is negatively/positively linked to the interplay between workflow networks and friendship networks.Moreover,we found organizational collectivism/individualism enhances the effects of innovation strategy on the interplays and environmental complexity weakens the effects of organizational collectivism/individualism on the relationships.Thus,the study delivers three contributions by showing the antecedents of the interplay of formal and informal networks,and clarifying the effect of strategic antecedents and internal and external context,and giving a new interdisciplinary systemic perspective to analyze above organization structural issues based on complexity theory.Firstly,we made up for the lack of current research focused on the results of the interaction between formal and informal networks by explaining the antecedents of the interplay between formal and informal networks.Secondly,we built a comprehensive model reflects the antecedents of interactions from driving effects of ambidexterity strategy and contingency moderator of culture as inner context and environment as external context based on analyzing of whole network data of 156 innovative organizations,we responded to how enterprise according to their environmental characteristics,build organizational culture and adjust its strategy,to form the most suitable for formal and informal interaction networks,while providing valuable guidance for management practices.Thirdly,we learnt from systematic thinking in a complex system theory,the study provided a totally new systematic perspective for deducing the formation process of the interplays between formal and informal networks within an organization,which could clearly show the whole laws and stages of formal and informal networks interacts,provide new ideas for organizational theoretical research from an interdisciplinary perspective.