Data, as a new production factor, is profoundly changing the innovation paradigm in enterprises. While prior literature has predominantly emphasized the positive linear effects of digital transformation on organizational innovation, the potential dark side of digital transformation, particularly its nonlinear effects on exploitation and exploration separately, remains underexplored. Moreover, innovation outcomes cannot be achieved without effective research and development (R&D) activities and knowledge absorption. This study aims to uncover the double-edged sword effects of digital transformation on ambidextrous innovation and to elucidate the mechanisms and boundary conditions underlying this relationship.
Integrating dynamic capability theory and organizational inertia theory, and using panel data from Chinese listed enterprises (2007–2022), this study examines the inverted U-shaped relationship between digital transformation and ambidextrous innovation, the dual mediating roles of R&D collaboration and absorptive capacity and the moderating role of knowledge diversity.
The findings reveal that digital transformation exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with both exploitation and exploration. Specifically, digital transformation affects R&D collaboration and absorptive capacity in an inverted U-shaped manner, which in turn produces inverted U-shaped effects on exploitation and exploration, representing a dual-pathway nonlinear mediation model. Furthermore, knowledge diversity moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship between digital transformation and R&D collaboration, steepening the curvilinear curve.
This study extends the digital paradox research by integrating dynamic capability and organizational inertia theories, challenges linear assumptions in knowledge management literature by demonstrating a dual-pathway nonlinear mediation model and identifies knowledge diversity as a boundary condition that shapes these curvilinear mechanisms.
