An Empirical Study of the Impact of Ambidextrous Innovation on Enterprise Performance

Abstract： To explore impact of domestic retail enterprises’ exploitative innovation and ambidextrous innovation (exploitative innovation and explorative innovation) on business performance，the authors carry out research on the panel data of 59 listed retail companies in China during 2013～2017. The results show that ambidextrous innovation will help improve market performance and increase market value；with the consideration of 1 year and 2 years delay effects，the ambidextrous innovation will have negative impact on financial performance；and with the consideration of 3 years and 4 years delay effects，the negative impact of ambidextrous innovation on financial performance is not obvious. From the angle of cooperate governance，higher percentage of shareholding of large shareholders will lead to lower performance of retail enterprises that performing ambidextrous innovation；but the impact is not obvious. With ambidextrous innovation，it is easier for the enterprises with higher asset-liability ratio to be impacted by external factors；because the enterprises will pay more attention to short- term return，they will not be positively involved in ambidextrous innovation. While carry out innovative activities，we should，first，consider factors such as external economic environment，the advance of technology，and competitive trend，choose suitable time to carry out explorative innovation and implement ambidextrous innovation；second，we should rationally allocate resources，and trade off between explorative and ambidextrous innovation；and third，we should change organizational structure，and adapt to ambidextrous innovation.

Key words：ambidextrous innovation；exploitative innovation；explorative innovation；enterprise performance；retail industry