摘要
本文借助文献计量分析,采用动态、系统与历史的视角较为客观地对探索与利用的知识基础及其演进过程进行研究,发现:探索与利用研究的知识基础可分为相互联系又相互独立的六大模块,包括组织双元性、组织学习与知识管理、关系、组织变革、资源基础观和定量研究方法;其演进过程可划分为三个阶段,1991-2000年为初级探索阶段,知识基础较为零散,散落于组织学习、技术创新、信息管理、知识管理、战略联盟等领域;2001-2010年为利用和优化前期成果的中间阶段,知识基础由发散到集中,逐渐形成了相对独立的核心知识结构;2011-2015年为进一步优化和应用拓展的成熟阶段,研究模型精致严谨、逻辑严密、研究方法系统规范,研究情境更加多元化。
Exploration and exploitation theory has proliferated in the past decades since March proposed it in 1991.Nowadays it has been broadly applied in diverse research fields such as strategy management,organizational learning,technological innovation,and even marketing.Since reflection is necessary for the theory development and refinement,some researchers have reviewed this theory from different perspectives.However,most of them were cross-sectional reviewing from the static view and lack of longitudinal literature reviews from the historical and evolutional perspective.In order to address these research gaps identified above,we investigate the intellectual structure of exploration and exploitation and how it evolves with the help of bibliometric analysis software(Cite Space),from a dynamic,systematic and historical perspective.Through time-slice-based citation and co-citation analyses,we can draw better insight on how exploration and exploitation theory evolves in particular periods and contexts,what we have known,and what are unknown right now.Thus,this is constructive not only to the development of exploration and exploitation theory,but also can inspire scholars who intend to develop new theories upon the Chinese special economic and cultural transitional context.In this paper,we use'explor~*'and'exploit~*'as searching topics in ISI Web of Science core collection database,set the time spans from 1991 to 2015 to cover SCI-Expanded,SSCI,A&HCI,limit the results in management category,and set the document types as article,proceedings paper and review.Accordingly,a total of 1348 documents were retained as our further analysis dataset.We regard every five years as a time slice,and the highest 1%citations(we set the maximum 100)were retained as the nodes in each time slice.Through automatic clustering algorithm of bibliometric,we identify six main clusters from the literature of exploration and exploitation,namely the organizational ambidexterity,the organizational learning and knowledge management,the ties,the organizational change and adaptability,the resource-based view and the quantitative research methods,which are not only interrelated but also mutually independent.For example,acknowledging the premise that the dual activities of exploration and exploitation compete the scarce resource and top managers’attention mutually,or even conflict with each other,the largest cluster(named organizational ambidexterity)focus on the issue of how to manage their conflict based on the paradox management and ambidexterity theory.These studies focus on organizational,unit,TMT,and individual level and put forward some important constructs such as differentiation and integration,contradiction,structural ambidexterity,efficiency and flexibility,consistency and adaptability.The second cluster(named organizational learning and knowledge management)pays close attention to deep-mechanisms of how exploration and exploitation interplay with each other based on organizational learning and knowledge-based theory.The third cluster(named ties)gives much attention to how to balance the conflict of exploration and exploitation from the social networks perspective,and introduces the concepts such as structural vs.relational embedding,strong vs.weak relationship,loose coupling vs.close coupling,and relational rent.The fourth cluster(named strategic change)extends the attention to the environmental antecedents of exploration and exploitation,and considers their temporal balance and links with the constructs such as adaptability,structural rigidity,gradual and radical change,continuous innovation and discontinuous innovation,environmental dynamics.The fifth cluster(named resource-based theory)extends the antecedents of exploration and exploitation from external to internal organization with resource-based theory and dynamic capability view.From a longitudinal historical perspective,we find that the framework of exploration and exploitation has developed from nascent to mature along a continuum of theory development.In the nascent period(1991-2000),the intellectual structure of exploration and exploitation was fragmented,scattered in organizational learning,technological innovation,knowledge management and strategic alliances.In this period,the emerging absorptive capacity theory,knowledge-based view,and dynamic knowledge creation became the foundational knowledge base of exploration and exploitation theory.This indicates this theory’s openness and inclusiveness,developing through comparing,learning and absorbing from related literature.In the intermediate period(2001-2010),the intellectual structure was gradually focused on antecedents,consequences and paradoxical management,with both qualitative and quantitative analyses.On the one hand,scholars were still exploring the relationship with other related theories,such as absorptive capacity,dynamic capacity and knowledge-based view to establish its external legitimacy.On the other hand,studies directly investigating its antecedents and consequences have gradually become an important knowledge base.This shows that scholars have begun to focus on exploring its coherent premise and try to pursuit its paradigm consistency and convergence to establish its internal legitimacy.At the same time,both empirical and theoretical studies were gradually moving towards organizational ambidexterity,which implicates that scholars’cognition about the interaction between exploration and exploitation has changed.In other words,scholars initially emphasized the dilemma relationship between these dual parts,but at this period,most of them began to view the dual activities as paradox,and insist that organizations should pursue them both simultaneously rather than make trade-offs between them.In the mature period(2011-2015),the intellectual structure evolved in more fine-grained,complex,and logically rigorous ways,shaping already multiple theoretical paradigms.Half of the nodes are about organizational ambidexterity,which indicates the widely consistency that exploration and exploitation are in a‘both/and’relationship.But there are some exceptions.For example,some scholars testified that exploration and exploitation were trade-offs using longitudinal panel data;and some of them took a fresh network view to investigate their relationship,in contrast with the static ambidexterity view.This is in accordance with the characteristic of mature theory development that research questions are elaborate and deep,either provide new testimony on established argument,or challenge the established premise.Through investigating the developmental process of exploration and exploitation theory,theory development can be generalized with the interplay process of exploration and exploitation framework,and we should emphasis on different aspects in different periods.For example,in the nascent and intermediate developing periods,exploring its knowledge base and theoretical mechanism internally from established theories,at the same time,exploring its connections and distinctions with relevant emerging theories and keeping openness with other constructs,are both important.However,in the mature period,exploiting may be more important than exploring,we can investigate its conditions and its alternative mechanisms through exploiting it to diverse and new contexts.
作者
贾慧英
王宗军
曹祖毅
Jia Huiying;Wang Zongjun;Cao Zuyi(Management School,Huazhong University of Science and Technology,Wuhan 430074,Hubei,China;College of Economics and Management,Huazhong Agricultural University,Wuhan 430070,Hubei,China)
出处
《科研管理》
CSSCI
CSCD
北大核心
2019年第8期113-125,共13页
Science Research Management
基金
中央高校基本科研业务费专项基金(2015AB020,2662017QD012)
国家自然科学基金青年项目:中国组织管理研究的严谨性、相关性与合法性:理论分析与经验证据(71802089)
关键词
探索
利用
知识结构
知识演进
文献计量
exploration
exploitation
intellectual structure
intellectual evolution
bibliometrics
