Uncovering moderators of organisational ambidexterity: evidence from the pharmaceutical industry

Our manuscript advances the growing literature on organisational ambidexterity by arguing that organisational ambidexterity more positively influences organisational performance when there are more learning obstacles to pursue both exploitation and exploration. Extending this argument, we identify five conditions under which organisational ambidexterity more positively influences long-term organisational performance. The conditions include the degree of environmental dynamism, competition, organisational size, organisational slack and organisational senescence. An empirical analysis of 50 pharmaceutical firms’ new product development characteristics and financial performance over a 20-year period supports our argument. Our findings inform future research on organisational ambidexterity by more specifically explaining the way in which organisational ambidexterity enables organisational survival and prosperity.