IT-Based Knowledge Capability and Commercialization of Innovations: Modeling the Impacts of Ambidexterity and Absorptive Capacity

The author provides a framework comprising of propositions for further research explicating the relations between IT-based knowledge capabilities (IT-KC) and Commercialization of Innovations (CI). They posit that a firm’s absorptive capacity and ambidexterity (ability to explore and exploit) affect CI. Further, absorptive capacity too can be an antecedent to ambidexterity. IT based knowledge capability (which is an instantiation of IT capability) is found to positively moderate the relationship between ambidexterity and commercialization of innovations, and also is an antecedent to potential and realized absorptive capacity. The author ties the seemingly isolated bits of literature together into an integrative theoretical model for testing.